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DON P A E Z 



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OTHER POEMS. 

BY A VIRGINIAN." 



NEW YORK: 
W. H. GRAHAM, TRIBUNE BUILDINGS. 

1847. 



d 



• 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1847, by 

THE AUTHOR, J^^^^fVl^' . 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 
District of Virginia. 



CONTENTS 



n 









Pags 


Preface ....... 


V 


Dedication ........ 


xi 


DON PAEZ. 




Duan I. ...... . 


. 1 


Duan II ...... . 


. 47 


Notes to Duan I. . 


. 81 


Notes to Duan II. . 


. 83 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 




Dedication ....... 


. 87 


The AUeghanies and the Kanawha 




89 


To Ohio .... 




94 


The Hieroglyphical Rock . 






97 


The Meadows of Dan 






100 


The Boiling Springs . . 






102 


The Trinity 






104 


Vision of Resurrection 






108 


The Tide of Time . 






111 


Valeria 






112 


Death of Lady Wallace 






114 


Beauty, Science, and Love . 






116 


To Lelia 






117 


The Scottsville Serenade . . 


• 


. 


120 



CONTENTS. 



Love Chant of Chili 

To Woman , 

The Bouquet 

Wedded 

Impromptu . 

Nieigara 

The Maid of Roanoke 

The Rencontre 

American War Song 

The Misanthrope 

Enigma 

The Ghost . 

The Drunkard 

Epigram I. . 

Epigram II. 

Farewell 



Paob 

. 123 
. 125 
. 126 
. 128 
. 129 
. 130 

132 
. 137 
. 139 
. 144 

14.5 
. 146 
. 149 
. 151 
. 152 
. 153 



^^ 



^^ 



PREFACE 



" Fashion is the queen of the world." Perhaps then, the 
success of a new work, whether it be in prose or poetry, 
depends more upon fashion than upon merit ; at least, with 
that portion of mankind who are governed more by extra- 
neous influences than by their own sound and sober judg- 
ments. Those whose footsteps follow the beaten track, and 
whose thoughts reach only to imitation, are not always apt to 
relish, at first sight, whatever is of an original character, till 
fashion has adopted and consecrated it, and nothing can 
become fashionable until it is known and approved. In the 
conception of Solomon it was a folly and a shame to judge 
of a matter before it was heard and understood. Excuses 
for writing and publishing books are common. They are, 
perhaps, the offspring of affected modesty rather than the 
results of reluctant authorship. I shall offer no excuse. 
For, if writing a book needs an excuse, why write it at all ? 
It is certainly easier to decline such a task than to accom- 
plish it. I have written this work because a propensity, 
connected with a combination of circumstances, prompted 
me to do it ; and the volume is sent forth upon its merits, be 



o 



vi PREFACE. 

they great or small. An impartial and a discriminating 
public will doubtless do it justice. I dare not flatter myself 
that it has no faults ; but let it be fairly weighed in the 
balance, and its merits may perhaps be found to be equal to 
its faults, at the same time that they might probably prepon- 
derate. During the revolutionary troubles in South America, 
a man named Paez arose, by his courage and address, from a 
herdsman on the pampas of La Plata to be a Governor 
General of Venezuela. But that gentleman enters not into 
the composition of the poem herein which bears his name. 
We will presume that he found employment at home suffi- 
cient to preclude the necessity of his roaming abroad in 
quest of adventures. Instead of Canto the old Scotch term 
Duan has been adopted, for the division of the poem styled 
Don Paez, because it is thought to be fully as appropriate, 
and I know of no reason for its having grown into disuse. 
It may be asked, who is the hero ? In reply, I would simply 
suggest that his history must be extracted from the poem 
itself — what that does not bring to light will probably remain 
under shadow. Suffice it to say that the scenes through 
which the poem progresses have been described from actual 
observation. He who derives enjoyment from the pursuit of 
a sparrow, in the estimation of Mr. Locke, enters as fully 
into the fruition of human happiness, as the man who seeks 
pleasure by following larger game : 

" The learned is happy Nature to explore, 
The fool is happy that he knows no more." 






PREFACE. vii 

To such congenial spirits as can sympathize with me by par- 
ticipating in the entertainments offered by the volume here 
presented, I heartily offer the right hand of fellowship ; 
while to those whose tastes, be they of a more humble or 
exalted kind, flow in a different channel, I would respectfully 
say : Let there be no strife between us ; if you go to the 
East I will proceed to the West, or if you depart to the 
West I will journey to the East. The world is of sufficient 
dimensions to contain all without conflict, and brethren 
should dwell together in harmony. The heavenly bodies 
move harmoniously in their respective orbits ; the trees bud, 
blossom, and yield their different kinds of fruit without con- 
fusion and disorder : let mankind learn wisdom from their 
example. 

THE AUTHOR. 
Albemarle County y Virginia. 



DU AN I. 

INSCRIBED TO 

AMBROSE FORD, ESQ. 



DON PAEZ 

DU AN I. 



But Science gives the word, and lo ! he braves 
The surge and tempest, lighted by her ray. 

Beanie's Minstrel. 

His friends he left ; nor yet his labors ceased, 
With wintry skies ; nor Spring his cares released. 

HooWs Ariosto. 

The noble heart by noble deeds is known. 
Swayed by no change, no dictates but its own. 

Ibid. 

No narrow views could bound his lib'ral mind. 
His friend was man, his party human kind. 

Moore. 

True wisdom's world will be 
Within its own creation, or in thine, 
Maternal nature. 

Byron. 



DON P AEZ. 



DUAN I. 

I. 

Subjects are scarce for poets at this day ; 

So doth the tribe of pen and ink indite, 
And long has Inspiration's latest ray, 

Left Nature's fount of undigested light ; 
So poetry is now a subject trite, 

Made common by the scribblers gone before ; 
Hence it is meet to keep one's thoughts from blight, 

That he should over other subjects pore, 
Or shut, against the rhyming muse, his closet door. 

II. 

Although the Hippocrenian Pool hath been 

Troubled full oft by abler sons of song. 
My humble muse will quaff the dregs, I ween, 

Sith late and lonely doth she pass along ; 
Of the pilgrims the lowliest that throng, 

A niche in Fame's proud edifice to find ; 
Contented if she hold a place among 

The gentle bards in solitude enshrined ; 
Nor cares to mount the blast and ride upon the wind. 



DON PAEZ 



ni. 



So thought Paez, as on he shaped his way, 

Through scenes erst hallowed by the warrior's tread, 
When Gorgon war stalked frantic for his prey, 

And despots smiled when Camden's heroes bled. 
Behold their banners floating o'er the dead ! 

An earnest that Columbians scorn to yield 
lill death consigns them to their narrow bed, 

'Mid all the trappings of the battle-field, [shield. 

The loud-mouthed gun, the drum, the sword, the bloody 

IV. 

'Tis autumn, earth her yellow livery wears ; 

Swift through the air the wild goose wings her flight, 
As by instinct from frozen climes she steers 

To Southern wolds exempt from winter's blight ; 
Faint and more faint she cries till lost to sight ; 

And in. the breeze, her wild note dies away 
A lesson true to meditative wight, 

That in one state man must not hope to stay, 
But change must follow change till dawns the judgment day. 



The poet things unknown eviscerates, — 

A traveller in Literature's wilds ; 
Who oft the shades of shadows contemplates, 

And seldom is requited for his toils ; 
But naught, sometimes, is reaped from richest soils, 

And who so blessed while Fancy sways as he. 
Should poverty not gripe him in her coils ; 

Then he is happy — yes ! — though he should be, 
Like Stylites, snugly nestled in a hollow tree. 



O 



DUAN I. 



Naught is so painful as to follow schools 

Through their insipid, tasteless, irksome round ; 
Keeping one's brains in duress by their rules, 

And sick with a monotony of sound. 
A horse gets little grass on trodden ground, 

And pedagogues have ruined many a mind ; 
Seldom a man much fertile land has found, 

On public highways known e'en to the blind, 
And trod by grovelling animals of every kind. 



Whose mind in its own lustre does not shine, 

But grovels on along the beaten trail. 
Is like a vessel floating on the brine. 

Without a rudder, compass, oar, or sail. 
Tossed by the waves, the sport of every gale ; 

To such, an anchor, nathless, is of use, 
On shoals of Ignorance they much avail. 

But who in scientific depths would cruise, 
Should mind to take in ballast ere his sails be loose. 

VIII. 

The human mind is like a stagnant pool. 

When not excited by some moving cause ; 
It lies in apathy chained down by rule, 

Nor rises to explore Creation's laws, 
Till nature the mysterious curtain draws ; 

When forward, like an eagle, Genius springs, 
And takes his flight 'mid wonder and applause, 

Shaking the flames of Science from his wings. 
And, at a glance, looks through this world of men and things 



4 DON PAEZ. ^ 

IX. 

True wisdom with experience must be bought, 

Wisdom ! the solace of man's wretched state ; 
Without, life were not worth a sober thought, 

An airy bubble on the sea of fate. 
Man, man may massacre with savage hate ; 

But Wisdom in thy lap exists repose. 
The conqueror may plume himself elate. 

Revel in blood, and feast on human woes ; 
But of thy sweet tranquillity ambition nothing knows. 

X. 

Grave reader, what's a conqueror ? Canst thou say ? 

Is he some lion walking upon thunder, 
And belching lightnings at his tremxbling prey ? 

Is he some monster treading empires under 
Foot ? Come say ! Dost thou the question ponder ? 

Then thou, perhaps, canst tell on what he feeds ? 
Look to the east, dost thou not see him yonder ? 

Dost thou not see him clad in purple weeds, 
'Midst heaps of human corpses ? On these he feeds, 
The more he doth destroy the greater are his deeds. 



Ah ! what is man? A moth, a fly, a worm ! 

As Grecia's sage, of old, did well advance ; 
Of the organic principle, a germ 

That holds a moment in Time's great expanse. 
The sport of Fortune, Fate, and fickle Chance, 

Soon comes the frost of Death and nips his bud, 
And soon forsaken are his transient haunts. 

Swept from the earth by Time's oblivious flood, [stood ! 
Oh, Death ! thy shafts, what prince or monarch hath with- 



^ 



DUAN I. 5 

XII. 

Now, Homer ! Virgil ! who shall wake the lyres, 

Whereon you warbled such celestial strains ? 
Pope ! Dryden ! Tasso ! who shall fan the fires 

That swelled the warrior's heart and soothed the swain's — 
That flashed on mountain tops, glowed in the plains ! 

And all the martyred saints are now at rest. 
That scorned the bigot's frown, the tyrant's chains, 

They are gone with Him of Calvary to attest, 
That who belongs to Heaven, on earth cannot be blessed. 



Pitt ! Emmett ! Sidney ! dry are now those veins. 

That glowed with living fire, at lawless sway ; 
Of Rome's stern patriots, ah ! what remains ? 

No more than what History can display ; 
They've long since mingled with their native clay ! 

And where, oh Athens ! is thy race divine ? 
With Time's winged moments have they passed away ! 

America ! Jefferson is no more thine. 
And the feral hymn of Henry has been chanted at thy shrine. 

♦ XIV. 

Where, Nimrod ! Csesar ! Xerxes ! are your thrones. 

Adorned in all the splendors of the East ? 
Your proud forms now are naught but calcined bones ; 

They erst were laid in dust, the worms to feast. 
Oh ! that with you ambition's voice had ceased ; 

And then the gilded sceptre had been broke. 
The badge of iron sway with king and priest, 

Then men had no more quailed when monarchs spoke, 
Had no more hugged their chains and bowed beneath the 

[yoke. 



6 DON PAEZ. 

XV. 

Where now are Pilate, Pharaoh, Jeroboam ! 

Where, Babylon, are now thy hundred gates ! 
The first have long been at naen's common home, 

The last a prey to the devouring fates ; 
No brazen valve upon its hinges grates, 

Where sacrilegious Babel proudly stood ; 
From time to time, — let History give dates — 

In horrid wars, plagues, famines, blood imbrued. 
The apostate race which saints and prophets vainly wooed. 

XVI. 

Palmyra, Carthage, Thebes ! where are your domes, 

That blazed refulgent in the midday sun ? 
The tiger now lives there — the wild boar foams 

On those fair plains, by tyrants lost and won ; 
The traveller points and tells your glass is run ; 

And is it so ? — It is ! yon dismal heaps. 
Where human grandeur fell when scarce begun, 

From which the ugly toad at twilight peeps. 
But serve to show us where the wolf securely sleeps. 



Antiquity is a charnelhouse, where bones 

With bones are blended in one common grave ; 
Where princes, satraps, archons, sages, drones, 

Kings, queens, and wits, the master and the slave ; 
The hero, poet, orator, and knave. 

In dust now indiscriminately lie ; 
Who now can tell the fearful from the brave ? 

Come, Stoic, tell us — versed in alchymy ; 
Canst not ? — Is there no difference in color ? — Why ? 



DUAN I. 



XVIII. 



In Nature's works one ruling power we find ; 

In plants 'tis renovation and decay ; 
Exaltation and depression in the mind, 

And tides their ebb and flow, by turns display ; 
Seasons revolve, and night succeeds to day, 

God, it may seem, such changes doth require, 
Till death and Resurrection hold the sway : — 

And that all worldly things should thus conspire, 
The glory to promote of their eternal Sire. 

XIX. 

The mighty pass, like summer flowers, away, 

Leaving the shadow of a name behind ; 
They bloom, and drop their fruit, and then decay ; 

Like plants in winter nipped by northern wind ; — 
Did virtue mark their steps ? then fame is kind 

And wafts their fragrance through the world afar. 
Did vice enthral them ? — then they are consigned 

To darkest shame, to hatred and despair. 
Contemned and shunned by all as poisonous reptiles are. 

XX. 

Thus generations roll, like waves, along. 

To-day on one, a generation rides ; — 
To-morrow where are they ? — Known but in song, 

Or on th' historic page ; — Tides roll on tides I 
One foams and dashes on, while one subsides, 

A nation now floats on a billow's crest, 
While one, perhaps, the selfsame billow hides, 

Thus each, alternate, swims and sinks to rest, — 
Thus to eternity are states by nations pressed. 



DON PAEZ. 



Onward, its tide Civilization rolls 

Where force gives law, justice must yield her wand, 
Then onward press the Indians, fated souls ! 

Led by the hardy chieftain of each band, — 
The tomahawk falls harmless from his hand. 

As on he v/anders to the Western shore. 
O'er valleys, hills and streams and mountain land. 

Through trackless wilds, scarce trod by man before, 
Beneath the wave of Power to sink and rise no more. 

XXII. 

But why condemn ? this is the way of man. 

Force frames the law and arms precede the plough, 
A tear of sympathy is all compassion can 

Give the poor Indians then, while on they go 
With step resolved, but melancholy brow. 

Must this be so ? It must, till Nature dies, 
And God resumes his sovereign power below : 

Till worlds be offered up in sacrifice, 
And thundering roll tremendous through the skies. 

LAY OF TIIE INDIAN QUEEN. 
1. 

O late, my warrior Chief and I, 

Did through these laurel woodlands hie ; 

With wild delight and native pride. 

His bow and quiver by his side ; 
CHORUS. O sleep, my darling pickayune,* 

While softly glows yon lurid moon, 
No father now lulls thee to rest, 
Or folds thee to his glowing breast. 

* Child. 



DUAN I. 



Over the hills the white man came, 
And wrapped our wigwam all in flame ; 
To take revenge, my warrior tried. 
And by the white man's hand he died. 
CHORUS. O sleep, &c. 

3. 

"His bow was snapped, his quiver broke. 
And now his tike* must bear the yoke ; 
Or over trackless deserts fly. 
To where the sun sinks from the sky. 
CHORUS. O sleep, &c. 

4. 

His bones now crumble in the vale, 
And I am left to breathe the tale ; 
While the big tear drop fills my eye — 
But haste, I must, the foe is nigh. 
CHORUS. O sleep, &c. 

XXIII. 

Empires, kingdoms, states, are ballrooms where, 

Kings, princes, emperors join in giddy dance; 
And crown their goblets to the god of War, 

While sound the drum and trumpet, sword and lance ; 
Now some are down, some up, now some advance. 

Now some recede, — now round and round they go, 
Now sessaing, as turns the scale of chance. 

Now slow they move — now swiftly to and fro, 
Till lo ! the drums are muffled, and the trumpets cease to blow. 

* Wife. 



10 DON PAEZ. 

XXIV. 

Time rolls apace — ^now view the struggling Greek, 

Immersed in blood, involved in clouds of war ; 
While on thy altars many thousands reek, 

O Liberty ! crushed by the battle car 
Of Russ and Turk — whose banners v/ave in air, 

Belligerent monarchs battling for power, 
Destroy, O Science ! all of thine that's fair ; 

O great Omniscient ! shall the Russ and Giaour, 
Thus images of thine by hecatombs devour ! 

XXV. 

Sure some divining comet now doth sail, 

Athwart the skies enrobed in triple wrath ; 
Shaking commotions from its fiery tail. 

And scattering great events along its path ; 
Shall War's red lightnings thrones and sceptres scath. 

And peace be drowned in the hoarse trumpet's clangor. 
Shall mad Ambition stalk like him of Gath, 

While nations rise, encoring the fandango, [Marengo. 
That late was danced in robes of blood at Leipsic and 



Fame, trumpet-mouthed, sweeps brawling through the skies 

And of Achaia tells the piteous tale ; 
Where now the Russian eagle prowling flies. 

And Liberty lies bleeding in the vale ; — 
No more the harp of Science swells the gale ; — 

Greece ! has thy fate been written on the shells ? 
Shall Justice sleep and despots hold her scale ? 

Ah ! what are states and kingdoms ? Hist'ry tells : 
Puerile gewgaws all and splendid bagatelles ! 



& 



DUAN 1. U 

XXVII. 

The name of Washington a pledge shall stand, 

Of liberty to ages in the womb; 
Imparting courage to each patriot band, 

His ghost shall perch upon the warrior's plume, 
Till liberty shall dissipate the gloom 

That hangs around the dungeons of the east ; 
Till time itself shall sink in Nature's tomb, 

And in the dust, Oppression, bloody beast. 
Lies low, and Tyranny no more exalts its crest. 

XXVIII. 

Oppression ! let the earls of Hapsburg tell, 

How freedom slumbered in a peasant's arm ; 
How to the dust thy broken sceptre fell, 

A lifeless wand divested of its harm ; 
No ruthless foe there spreads the dire alarm. 

Thy trump, ambition ! speaks no more of war. 
But liberty unfolds her mystic charm, 

Where once stern Moloch rolled his iron car, 
Athwart the Alpine cliffs. All's peace and quiet there ! 

XXIX. 

Look back a little through the mists of time. 

At Plymouth view the enterprising band ; 
Which braved the seas, the savages and clime ; 

By persecution driven from their land, 
With trust in God here do they take their stand. 

And here the spark of liberty appears. 
Fomented by Religion's potent hand, 

It spreads apace athwart the hemispheres. 
While monarchs are involved in gloomy fears. [cheers. 
The fiat's spoke, the eagle soars 'mid plaudits, shouts and 



12 



DON PAEZ. 



XXX. 



The arm that slumbers is not always weak, 

From Erin, Emmett's spirit has not fled ; 
Justice is ne'er supine though often meek ; 

Debased, man will not always hang his head, 
And hug his chains upon Subjection's bed ; 

Roused from his slumbers by liberty's cries. 
He'll spurn the torpor that befits the dead ; 

A Tell, a Bruce, a Washington may rise, 
And yet the Shamrock wave triumphant in the skies. 

XXXI. 

List to her voice and History will tell ; — 

For of such things her province is to speak ; — 
How Rome, Sparta, Macedonia fell, 

Amid Corruption's shout and virtue's shriek ; 
The texture of all human laws is weak. 

They only serve as webs to hold the flies, 
While through them wasps and hornets freely break. 

Thus Scythia's son, to Grecian sage replies ; [ties ? 

Man, Where's thy might ? Canst not invent some stronger 

XXXII. 

The human mind is like the ocean's caves, 

Where many gems conceal their lustre bright. 
Which thrown upon the surface by the waves. 

Is grasped by Genius and revealed to sight ; 
Genius converts darkness into light ; 

Foul Superstition reigned with shrieks and cries. 
Till Nature spoke and Genius took its flight, 

Despite of popes and priests and such like flies, 
And spread a flame that shall exist till nature dies. 



^ 



DUAN I 13 



XXXIII. 



And what is Genius ? — a heteroclite, 

That scorns to bend to pedagogic rules ; 
Scope, Nature, Liberty are its delight : — 

It sickens in the atmosphere of schools ; 
It cannot, will not drink at stagnant pools — 

But loves to bound along the mountain's side, 
At Nature's fount the while its thirst it cools ; 

Or sport where cataracts dash their foaming pride, 
Or in its gay bark dance upon the ocean's tide. 

XXXIV. 

The press arose in Freedom's armor clad. 

Wide through the World, it poured its flood of light ; 
The bigot trembles and the tyrant's sad ; 

The Vatican exerts its waning might, 
'Tis God who speaks, and surely he speaks right ; 

He speaks, and lo ! its fulminations cease. 
Like morning sun Religion rises bright. 

Torture ! her voice thy engines doth appease. 
Her sceptre is the Book of everlasting peace. 



'Tis hard sometimes to read the book of Fate, 

And fathom all its ordinances strange, 
When vice is seen to move in high estate, 

And virtue destined to an humble range ; 
But who for gold gives wisdom rues the exchange, 

This by the Bible do we understand ; 
For there 'tis said Jehovah did arrange, 

That Virtue be not swayed by Mammon's hand, 
As brightest gems are often found in poorest land. 



14 DON PAEZ. 



XXXVI. 



The hearts of some are filled with brazen wire, 

Drove by the shuttle through asbestos warp ; 
Where Plutus doth his jingling notes respire, 

That drowns the strains of Virtue's dulcet harp ; 
Mammon assumes the privilege to carp, 

At precepts which serve not to pamper pride ; 
His wit at driving trades is keen and sharp, 

But thick and dull at everything beside, 
That Satan is his fosterfather cannot be denied. 

XXXVII. 

Some minds with ignorance are void and dreary. 

Where here and there, an idea is seen ; 
Like roses in the desert of Sahara, 

Or stars when absent Luna throws her sheen. 
On the antipodes, with earth between, 

How like a mummy doth the miser look, 
Or a dried venison ham ; — for pennies keen ; 

If to register sin there is a book 
Above, sure in its foremost page stands that old rook. 

XXXVIII. 

The world's a library, each man a book, 

The title-page of some contains their creed ; 
And some are ledgers M^here we need not look. 

For aught but " Ditto's " avarice to feed ; 
While some there are mysterious indeed, 

And some that wear the knave's chameleon face ; 
Others there be, and such I like to read, 

Of Wisdom, Science, Truth, the dwelling place — 
These of the social fabric constitute the base. 



9 

DUAN I. 15 



XXXIX. 

Full oft appears a book in gilt ybound, 

Where naught of interest the student meets, 
While many a musty tattered tome is found, 

That bears intelligence upon its sheets ; 
Which hath, perhaps, been trampled in the streets ; 

To rule the intellect there is no law ; — 
'Tis fancy strews with flowers the Muses' seats ; 

Do as one may, the crows and rooks will caw, 
And geese ! It is their nature to cry quaw ! 

XL. 

The heads of some their libraries contain, — 

Such men are stars on Wisdom's 'scutcheon bright ; 
The shelves of others ; where they aye remain, 

Involved in dust and intellectual night, — 
The mouldy viands of the moth and mite ; 

The mind of man is like a diamond mine, 
Where here and there a diamond strikes the sight ; 

Hence many a heap of trash we must decline, 
Ere we an idea find that's fit to grace our line. 



What is that gold that many love to hoard ? 

Is there use for it in eternity ; 
Will it suffice in heaven to pay one's board, 

Or hell if there perchance his lot should be ? 
Does its own fruit accompany the tree. 

And serve to tell of righteousness and sin ; 
O miser ! then, what will be done with thee ? 

Thou wilt be plunged in gold up to thy chin. 
And thy skull be made a crucible to melt it in. 



# 



16 DON" PAEZ. 



Yet Avarice doth hold influence great, 

As withering as the breath of the simoom ; 
And whosoever bows beneath its weight 

Consigns his virtue to an early tomb ; 
As erst Trophonius' cave, it sheds a gloom 

Upon the minds of such as bend the knee 
Submissive at its shrine ; — their willing doom, 

Thus fixed, "^uch sordid slaves cannot be free : 
Who sells his soul for gold knows naught of liberty. 

XLIII. 

And Mammon ! dark oppression oft is thine ; 

'Twas thou, of old, who made Greek prey on Greek ; 
Beneath thy sway oft saints and sages pine ; — 

To sate thy lust doth many victims reek ; 
By thee did Persia's monarch vengeance seek, 

Upon those nations which he could not foil 
By force and arms. For brave they were though weak, 

In point of numbers. Xerxes ! thy splendid coil. 
Was shaken off when enteredst thou on freedom's soil. 

XLIV. 

Mammon ! thy dust doth also much avail, 

As many a bard has sung, with female minds ; 
Yes, whosoe'er with gold inclines the scale, 

A ready matrimonial market finds ; 
The maiden with precipitancy winds, 

Like a young vine, around the tallest purse ; 
The marriage knot seldom so quickly binds, 

As when with gold for better and for worse, 
Though it's oft a blessing it is sometimes a curse. 



DUAN I. 17 



XLV. 



It's right to wed, — wed every one who can. 

Why ? Dost thou like a squeamish canting prude, 
Who, through her wrinkles, sees a beast in man ? 

And does the world admire that selfish brood, 
Whose clay-cold hearts, by avarice subdued, 

With nature wage a sacrilegious war ? 
And hath all conjugal attempts withstood, 

Till they have scarce another tooth to spare, 
And Time can't get much more from them by wear and tear. 



If on the earth friendship is to be met ; — 

Friendship the charm that lulls our cares to rest ; 
'Tis like a diamond bright involved in jet ; 

Or golden boss upon an Ethiop's breast. 
Who can, like woman, its sheer worth attest ? 

Her love is the quintessence of the soul, 
With love's soft pangs rude hearts cannot be blessed 

O'er souls refined alone, it bears control. 
For true love's pure as virgin ice that glittei*s round the pole. 

XLVII. 

To woo a maid requires circumspection. 

For love with her's the preface oft to hate, 
And much depends upon a fair complexion, 

Upon the purse, her parents too, and fate ; 
But yet at Woman's shrine 'tis ours to wait ; 

And it is prudent when for wives we angle, 
That love, in part, should constitute the bait. 

As fortune, 'tis well known, doth oft entangle. 
The marriage rights, and cause the affiance to jangle. 



18 DON PAEZ. 

XL VIII. 

The man who to his wealth becomes a slave, 

Knows little of quiet felicity ; 
For he who covets gold lives but to crave, 

And what were man should the mind captive be — 
A leaky vessel on a stormy sea, 

A golden targe protects us not from fate, 
She hurls her darts alike at bond and free ; — 

But on Paez, on, on, nor longer wait, 
There's but one triune God ; " to prayer, lo ! God is great." 

XLIX. 

His home and friends, Paez prepares to leave, 

Nor in the parting could he take delight. 
Yet he was too much gratified to grieve, 

At visiting the Southern regions bright, 
And who shall say he was not in the right, 

Should never leave his truckle bed behind ; 
Nay, he should never leave his grandam's sight ; 

His deeds in memory no place shall find 
But vanish, like the chaff before the mountain wind. 



L. 

Away, away, why should he linger here ? 

Let Don Paez his joyous journey take ; 
From all the scenes which memory holds dear. 

And his hard-hearted lady-love forsake : 
And Avend his way o'er hill and stream and brake, 

For why 1 Wouldst know ? — His duties doth demand, 
Let doubt and fear no difficulties make, 

Hie, hie, Paez, o'er Carolina's sand, 
And battle fields, where carnage once defiled the land. 

6 h 



(§r 



DUAN I. IQ. 



Scenes fraught with interest Paez doth wed, 

Scenes that were awful in another day ; 
When on to victory old heroes led 

Thousands, now resting on their beds of clay 
Who boldly dashed into the bloody fray, 

Of streams of blood stemming the crimson tide. 
When, Liberty ! in heaps thy martyrs lay 

In shrouds of blood, to taste the fruits denied, 
Which we enjoy — for which they fought and bled and died. 

LII. 

The field of Guilford opens on his eye. 

Where gushed, of eld, the purple vital stream ; 
When many a soldier heaved life's parting sigh, 

'Mid war-clouds lighted by the transient gleam 
Of clashing blades, that cast a vivid beam 

Athwart the gloom that hung its shades around. 
And sank full many a soul in death to dream 

Of the untimely graves that then were found ; — 
Nay, soft, step light — this spot is consecrated ground. 

LIII. 

Hush ! hark ! what jarring sounds assail his ear ? 

Is it the war-horse rushing to the charge ? 
What does he see ? groups clad in battle gear ? 

While matchfires blaze, and guns their wrath discharge. 
Broken armor, beasts and soldiers strewed at large. 

The early victims of the bloody fight. 
Is it for freedom that they wield the targe ? 

Sometimes men fight for power, but thou art right. 
The combat here is had to quell a despot's might. 



20 DON PAEZ. 

LIV. 

Indeed 'tis fought to gain each of these ends ; 

The tyrant fights to hold his lawless sway ; 
The slave with courage desperate contends, 

Because he is afraid to run away ; 
But mark the spot where Freedom's banners play, 

On which is written liberty or death, 
From beardless youth they stand, to silver grey, 

They've sworn no more to draw Subjection's breath, 
Remark their swords — they've drawn, and thrown away 
the sheath. 

LV. 

In Carolina, on a fertile soil, 

Live those of v.hom my pen delights to tell ; 
Whose visages seem warring with a smile, — 

Sedate and staid as ghosts of Fontanelle, 
Here unity, peace, love, and friendship, dwell, 

And those unruly passions do not swell 
The heart of man, that make on earth a hell — 

In common here, all labor, buy and sell, 
Evince no jarring rivalry, and all is well. 

LVI. 

Too much neglected is the female mind, 

Thus Moravians think and think aright ; 
To woman Science often hath been kind, 

And taught her Wisdom's purest truths to write ; 
Let not blind prejudice the notion slight. 

Now, lawyer ! Wouldst thou have a jjrccedent, 
Well, Madame de Stael's to my purpose quite ; 

Will one not do ? then Morgan I'll present. 
The fact is plain, and needs I ween no more comment. 



DUAN I. 21 

LVII. 

Remark the dust that holds the world in chains, — 

The great first principle of all our toils, — 
The poison lurks in Carolina's veins. 

For which full many a wretched victim moils 
In torrid sands and cold Siberian soils, 

In dismal dirty dungeons deep immured. 
At thought whereof humanity recoils ; 

Vain man ! cannot thy lust of gain be cured ? 
No ! though thy coffers were with Peru's mountains stored. 

Lvm. 

What did thy bloody conquests boot thee, Spain ? 

Those conquests signed and sealed with human gore, 
Didst by them gain ? — Yes, thou indeed didst gain, 

With triple vengeance too — aye, how ? — wherefore ? 
Hast read the fate of Carjaval ? — what more ? 

Permit, me, Spain ! to say the same is thine — 
The draught thou swallow'dst and the yellow ore 

That thou didst crave, brought on thy own decline. 
And headlong plunged thee down to Misery's deepest mine. 

LIX. 

Not all the wealth of Delhi or Peru ; 

Not Mexico in precious gems arrayed ; 
Not Brazil with her diamonds fair to view, 

Can staunch the gaping wounds that Cortez made, 
Or wipe the blood from stern Pizarro's blade ; — 

The blade of conquest wielded far and wide, 
Before whose edge the rights of thousands fade ; 

The fruitful source of many a crimson tide. 
O Earth ! shall thus thy fairest fields in blood be dyed ! 



22 DON PAEZ. 



LX. 

But can the hearty welcome be forgot, 

Of the staid Boniface who lives at Lex — 
N.0 more, my muse, thou knowest 'tis not thy lot 

The rights of hospitality to vex, 
What if his fingers do compose the text 

Whereon he reckons each and every score ? 
Thou hast thy fill — then why shouldst thou perplex 

Thyself about the matter any more ; [the door. 

The bugle sounds — the mail coach waits, in, in, and close 

LXI. 

In private walks the Don would never pry. 

And what he should not, ne'er did seek to hear, 
The chamber aye was sacred to his eye. 

And Innocence from him had naught to fear ; 
Beauty, childhood, virtue, found a fere 

In him ; in all he did or said or sung, 
He meddled not with aught but public gear ; 

Oft he would mingle with the gay and young ; 
But yet, at whiles, he loved to roam the fields among. 

LXII. 

A storm arose while here Don Paez lay, 

In through the broken panes the lightning flashed ; 
The tempest through the shutters made its way. 

And thus, for once at least, the floor was washed, 
By puddles in which ducks might well have splashed, 

Or swum and paddled, to use terms more gustical — 
While rats and mice across the ceiling dashed ; 

But, on the whole, the cheer was good though rustical : 
Hosts are sometimes ugly, and bedrooms thunder gustical. 



d 



DUAN I. 23 



O'er sterile sands, through pmy forests deep, 

On swiftly to the lowlands now he hies ; 
Where deadly mists through the morasses creep, 

And gophers, serpents, alligators rise, 
In their deformity before the eyes. 

Where lichen hangs in dark festoons around, 
And Cambridge boasts a nose which Sterne would prize, 

Had he observed the visage which it crowned. 
And in his chapter on that organ 'twould be found. 

LXIV. 

On, on, now Camden fills our tourist's eye. 

Where erst was shed full many a bloody tear ; — 
And the dry bones, in clusters crumbling lie, 

Columbia ! of thy children slaughtered here ; — 
Hope, for a season, slumbered on their bier. 

Till, angel -winged, the herald of the skies, 
Clad in the robes of glory doth appear. 

Dispels her griefs and bids her quit her sighs, 
Now view her laws and charter — they were made the prize. 

THE BATTLE. 

Here let the bold lyre of Minerva be strung, 
And the struggles of Freedom with Tyranny sung ; 
Where once the shrill clarion's deep screaking tone, 
And the loud bugle brattling her war-breathing drone, 
Awoke the fierce war-horse from his slumbering trance, 
While fire-belching Discord cried, advance ! advance ! 
And flame-clad Bellona thrid the war-clouds dun. 
Amid the hoarse clamor of drum, trump and gun ; 
When foeman met foeman, and flourished his arms, 
'Mid soul-chilling yells, horrid shrieks, and alarms. 



24 DON PAEZ. 

The flash of artillery — the rocket's red glare, 

The smoke,, in thick columns ascending in air ; 

The clashing of falchions — the bayonet's gleam, 

The whizzing of balls, and the eagle's loud scream, 

The groans of the dying, the heaps of the slain. 

And the match-fires lighting the gloom of the plain ; 

While Liberty shrieked and Tranquillity fled. 

And many a patriot sank with the dead, 

And weltered in blood which for Freedom was shed, 

Ere half of his days on this planet were sped. 

That blood flowed in torrents to fatten the field — 

That blood with which, Freemen ! your freedom was sealed, 

That blood with which, Britain ! we humbled thy pride ; 

When potentates trembled and tyranny died. 

That blood which then watered the roots of that tree. 

Which shall bloom in each continent o'er land and sea. 

That tree, which at Plymouth of eld took its rise, 

The eagle perched on it, and cheers rent the skies ; [run. 

Though, Camden ! in streams through thy plains that blood 

Yet 'twas but an earnest of what should be done ; 

Columbia, strengthened at cruelties past. 

In infancy strangled the serpent at last ; 

In the councils of heaven the fiat was spoke, 

Her chains flew asunder, the sceptre was broke. 

O Erin ! and Greece ! to the lesson attend. 

And rely on the Ruler of heaven for your friend : 

While Emmett, Leonidas, Washington, Tell, 

Shall invoke divine justice, and all yet be well. 

Names ! that shall be honored while time shall endure, 

And echo in chaos when time is no more. 

Names ! that shall be sung till the dead shall arise, 

At the sound of the trumpet, and swim in the skies. 



d 



DUAN I. 25 

LXV. 

Behold yon monumental pyramid, 

Which speaketh of eventful hours by-gone, 
And of a hero brave who was forbid 

To see fair Freedom on Columbia's dawn, 
And hear the shouts of that auspicious morn ; — 

Entombed beneath sepulchral marble white 
Low, low, he lies ; but not of glory shorn ; 

His name stands fair among the worthies bright, 
Who won for Columbia, her well-contested right. 

LXVI. 

De Kalb ! McDonald ! Jasper ! sons of Fame, 

At Freedom's shrine who offered up your blood ; 
To latest time the herald shall proclaim, 

How you the battle's fiery front withstood. 
Breasting with lion hearts the gory flood 

That erst swelled on o'er Carolina's soil. 
The names of heroes brave, and great, and good, 

Time's all-devouring jaws shall not despoil. 
Ere deep eternity rolls on and clasps him in her coil. 

LXVII. 

And can the soul of man remain supine, 

When nature sings in thunders to her God, 
And shall we sacrilegiously repine 

When heaven, in mercy, wields affliction's rod ? 
O no ! the roughest path with ease is trod. 

When He of heaven vouchsafes to nerve the soul. 
The great Omniscient, at whose awful nod. 

The rocks in streams along the valleys roll. 
And trees and plants weep tears of blood at his control. 



^ — — ^ 

26 DON PAEZ. 

LXVIII. 

Like an old manuscript this land appears, 

Whose characters can scarcely now be traced, 
For Time has rolled along his waves of years, 

And nigh the vestiges of war erased ; 
The Arts now flourish o'er the dreary waste 

Where Rutledge, Pinckney, Marion bravely fought. 
Against the stern invading foeman braced, 

To nourish Liberty by nature taught. 
Till heaven the fiat spake, and lo ! the deed was wrought. 

LXIX. 

The hills of Santee lift their misty heads. 

Far o'er the landscape mantled in pale blue ; 
While memory upon Don Paez sheds 

The scenes which veterans were wont to view, 
As round their heads the blast of bugles flew. 

And the deep drum bespoke the foeman neai^ 
'Mid war's fierce tempests to their standard true, 

And war-shouts hoarse, fens and morasses drear, 
Nor quailed at sight of trenchant blade nor brandished spear. 

LXX. 

Tradition tells where traitor tories sneaked. 

And plyed the dark assassin's bloody knife ; 
Whose blade with blood of many a patriot reeked. 

Who through his wounds breathed his reluctant life ; 
With such vile deeds, of eld this land was rife, 

But o'er the slain no tumulus is seen, 
Erased by tempests, time, and bloody strife. 

And footsteps of the traveller, I ween. 
Thus the old chroniclers now tell, of what has been. 



DUAN I. 27 

LXXI. 

Through dark morass enwrapped in sable shroud, 

At night Paez by stellar lamps must go, 
From whose dark bosom issue screamings loud, 

Like echoes from the dismal realms below ; 
While the pale stars on nature's watch-tower glow. 

And howling curs break in on her repose. 
Through the dense copse the sighing breezes blow, 

Dark, dreary, gloomy as the vale of woes. 
And death, it seems, its winding-sheet around him throws. 



Where, Atalantis, are thy fairy fields. 

So finely painted in old Egypt's lore ? 
No more thy continent, its pleasures yields. 

Deep buried now beneath Atlantic's roar. 
While Ocean's waves were trespassing before, 

Behind he threw his reefs of barren sand ; 
Thus while his empire such accession bore 

Did Dereliction show the southern land, [hand. 

These banks of shells and sand-hills are the work of ocean's 

LXXIII. 

With world-makers the Don would not contend ; 

Nature affords materials for all. 
And if their brains mechanical should blend, 

Her lumber-house would altogether pall, 
And earth remain, like Burnet's head, a ball. 

With many a mass of matter indigestible, — 
Such sages' works he would not overhaul, 

And say which of them can act best a fool. 
But leave each to his doctrine incontestible. 



28 DON PAEZ. 

LXXIV. 

Yet he did venture one hypothesis, 

While roaming through the southern hills of sand ; 
Geologists might not take it amiss 

Had he inferred that these sand chains were planned 
By the Gulf-stream, when in its progress grand 

They did compose its tumultuous bed, 
As it foamed, chafed and fretted o'er the land, 

Before it to its present place had fled. 
Thrown thither by some earthquake with convulsions dread. 

LXXV. 

The elements obeyed when Fulton spoke, 

Her fruits to reap how oft is worth denied, 
The richest soils oft weeds of envy choke, 

And gratitude scarce tells where Fulton died ; 
On rolls the steamer down Savannah's tide, 

Where Afric's sable children swink and moil 
In oozy swamps, where rice-fields open wide, 

And irrigation prompts the tardy soil. 
And humid mists the sweets of life and health despoil. 



Misfortunes flow with life's corrupted stream. 

They wreathe their serpent folds in every clime, 
And of debate hath slavery been a theme. 

With saints and sages from the earliest time. 
And shall I say that slavery is a crime ? 

Oh, heaven ! shall vain presumptuous man decide ? 
Forbid, great God ! that e'er my lowly rhyme 

Should wear the aspect dark of grumbling pride, 
Since Thou, alone, the movements of thy works must guide. 

d ' -* '" ■•'-'■ • ■ " =^ 



DUAN I. 29 



LXXVII. 



Though Inspiration should my soul dissolve, 

Though my unlettered pen could vomit fire, 
The mystery I could not then resolve, 

For to teach Wisdom's self who can aspire ? 
Who can presume to lecture Nature's sire ? 

Satan once did ; but ah ! where was he hurled ? 
Down, headlong down, to dark perdition dire. 

To lie till heaven's banners be unfurled, 
And dreadful thunders sing the fun'ral anthem of the world. 

LXXVIII. 

Who does not relish such a charming sight ? 

How passing lovely is it to behold 
The landscape sparkling with the waters bright, 

O'er wider surface than the eye can hold ; 
Where hill and town, and stream and fen, and wold, 

And ships along the wharves at anchor fast, 
Spires and farm-houses, in relievo bold ; 

The spreading canvas and the naked mast. 
Combine to give the whole a most engaging cast. 

LXXIX. 

Remark yon height where war's red bonfires blazed, 

And on the ramparts see those colors wave ; 
Still waving, while the fruitless siege is raised, 

What time brave Jasper rushes to the grave, 
Them from the foe's extended hand to save, 

Made and conferred by female fingers fair. 
Of gratitude a trophy to the brave. 

No more the drum bids him for fight prepare ; 
No more the cry of battle leads him on to war. 



30 DON PAEZ. 

LXXX. 

Observe those domes grey with the mists of years, 

Those domes that echoed with the noisy fray ; 
Behold Savannah's daughters all in tears ; 

While fathers, husbands, lovers, brothers lay 
In bloody shrouds borne on their biers away ; 

And all is consternation and despair. 
While on the battlements the halberds play. 

And lightning-lit the flaming falchions glare, 
And loud-mouthed guns earth's firm foundations jar. 

LXXXI. 

Spirit of Freedom ! check thy lofty wing. 

And fiinged with mourning let it hover here. 
A sacrifice from eastern climes I bring 

To freedom's altar and Columbia's bier, 
Columbia's future sons shall give a tear 

Unto Pulaski's shade as I have done, — 
A soul that kindled in each hemisphere ; 

Poland shall lose full many such a son. 
Long ere her noble heaven-approving cause is won. 

LXXXII. 

The anchor's weighed ; — now, now the canvas lithe, 

Swells, puffs, expands, rides, dances in the wind, 
Like a fleet swan we stream along the frith. 

And leave the fading continent behind, 
To Perry, Hull, Decatur, fame is kind. 

Stars that adorn the trident's western tine, 
On Ocean's shield their names a place shall find, 

And with a Nelson and St. Vincent shine, 
While there's a color lefl to wave upon the brine. 



DUAN I. 31 



LXXXIII. 



But where the landmarks line the dark blue sea, 

The picturesque our notice doth command, 
Where rolls the fleecy foam around Tybee ; — 

Exhibiting, at whiles, a chalky strand ; 
Where rushes, shrubs, and trees, commingled stand. 

From whose recesses shrill the bittern screams ; — 
Where croaks the bullfrog from the curtained land. 

And Ocean's face reflects a blaze of beams. 
As o'er his wide expanse the main-top-gallant streams. 

LXXXIV. 

Saint Pierre ! how can thy battering-rams of fire 

Pump up the waves of puncheons many a score ? 
Where shall this great ascending flood retire ? 

The atmosphere no doubt would swallow more 
Than would produce another flood of Noah ; 

Would'st cram thy battering-rams in Nature's craw, 
And strangle her to bring about a cure 

Of her defects ? Don't she know her own law ? 
Where gravitation's neutral what's the magnet for ? 



Nature's alembic is the torrid zone. 

Where self-combustion bids volcanoes blaze ; — 
Where gelid waves from frigid regions thrown. 

The lighter fluids on the surface raise. 
And thus the elemental balance plays ; 

So far Saint Pierre thou spakest in sooth, no doubt ; 
But now thy battering-ram no longer sways ; 

The Gulf-stream is the swift discharging spout, 
Through which the magnet draws the heated waters out. 



3!J DON PAEZ. 



LSXXVI. 



Now he is tossed upon the wide, deep sea. 

On every side ybounded by the skies ; 
The Don sea-sick, not much disposed to glee,. 

Resumes his harp that in a torpor lies, 
And breathes a wild unvarnished sacrifitce ; — 

An artless, rude, but yet a fervid lay, 
He bids from melancholic gloom to rise,, 

To friends far o'er the foaming brine away, 
Who are remembered still with scenes of earlier day. 



THE OCEAN LYEE^ 



The sails are full, the breeze is brisk and fine ; 
The vessel, like a swallow, skims the brine ; 
The sunbeams in concentric sparkles dance,. 
Like diamonds on the aqueous expanse. 



Swift o^er the waves the ship majestic rides. 
And, like a Triton, breasts the swelling tides. 
When, lo ! ahead arising into view, 
A speck emerges from the waters blue. 



On, like an eagle, merrily we fleet. 
No prospect e'er was lovelier I weet ; 
Full on the sight the craggy cliffs expand. 
And joyfully the sailors greet the land. 



DUAN I. 
4. 



The waves resound against the rocky shore, 
And foam and dash with a tremendous roar ; 
Aloft in air tumultuous they rise, 
And seem to roll their spray along the skies. 



5. 

A pile of rocks precipitous we spy, 
Where a huge crevice opens on the eye ; 
Through which the briny billows swift and strong. 
Rush, break, and roar, and dash their foam along. 

6. 

As if by some convulsion rent in twain, 
Some paces from this crevice in the main ; 
An upright rock like a bold giant stands, 
And scorns obedience to the sea's commands. 



7. 

Sweet breathes tne gentle breeze as ether pure, 
Anon, astern the breakers faintly roar ; 
The sun is mild and soft, the sky serene, 
And Rapture pours its incense o'er the scene. 

8. 

As swift as a falcon the ship flies ahead. 

O'er the bank of Bahama while Jack casts the lead. 

And sings in a voice like a dirge on the sea. 

While he draws in the leadline, " A quarter less three !" 



=© 



34 DON PAEZ. 

9. 

Now like a lion crouching in his kir, 
The storm reposes in the stagnant air ; 
Eftsoons in wrath it thunders forth its might, 
And vents its howlings on the drowsy night. 

10. 

In agony the vessel seems to roll, 
Sublimity and aWe distend the soul, 
Old Ocean swells with majesty and pride. 
And frantic throws his spray on every side. 

11. 

In the loud howling tempest the topsails are streaming ; 
To the winds in shrill chorus the curlew is screaming, 
And the ship cleaves the surge with convulsions and throes. 
While the mariner sings : " Up she goes! — up she goes !" 

12. 

" Reef topsails !" now our watchful captain cries, 
Obsequious, up the shrouds the sailor flies ; 
And on the yard arm wrestles with the sail. 
That raps and flaps and quivers in the gale. 

13. 

'Mid the bleak brawling blast and the billows' commotion, 
The mariner raises his song of the ocean. 
And bawls in the tempests as loudly they blow, 
" Haul in the mainsail !" Heave ho ! Heave ho ! 



DUAN I. 
LXXXVII. 

O'er the Bahama Bank they wend their way, 

The sailor did not cease to c ast his lead, 
And cry the water's depth. At break of day 

The ship struck full upon a shoaly bed. 
And lay as if her moving powers were dead ; 

The sails were all hauled in and signals thrown, 
Denoting her distress, from her masthead ; 

But still her situation was unknown, 
Till she was saved by passengers and crew alone. 

LXXXVIII. 

The Public is an animal whose heart 

Is a ragout, of strange materials made ; 
Whereof the passions form the major part ; 

Or shall we say that envy is a jade, 
Beneath whose frown true worth doth often fade ? 

Till the poor trembling victim's glass is run. 
And fame but tells, alas ! where he is laid ! 

Thus where he ends his honor is begun ; 
Thus Spain, like step-dame false, rewards her noblest son. 

LXXXIX. 

Necessity may goad man on to fame ; 

But honor lives in his obituary, 
Or in his epitaph — it's all the same — 

For why 1 — I do not deem it necessary, 
Upon this point to make a commentary. 

Nature, though changeable, is aye the same, 
And he, indeed, must be a Solitary, 

Or else his faculties are much to blame. 
Who cannot of the human race this knowledge claim. 



36 DQN PAEZ. 

xc. 

What isle upon the starboard lifts its brow^ 

Romantic, sterile, desolate, and wild ? 
And what are those upon the larboard bow, 

Like mountain summits in the ocean piled ? 
That's Abaco, these Berry Isles are styled. 

Are they inhabited 1 — They are : — By whom ?- 
By men to civil duties reconciled ? 

The opposite is what you may presume, 
Wreckers half civilized they seem, in moral gloom. 



Of what are the Bahama Banks composed ? — 

Of seashells thrown up by the billows' sway ? 
Or are they gravel in rude heaps disposed, 

By the gulf stream as swift it makes its way. 
Round the protrusive cape of Florida ? 

The former is the cause, perhaps, — and why ?- 
The waters a calcareous hue display. 

Which serves, in some degree, to testify, 
That shells here in a state of calcination lie. 



Wild phantasies ! perhaps you will exclaim. 

With hands uplifted, when you read this scrawl, 
Should you not like them, better systems frame, 

While 1 will further with the figure crawl, 
And fix my climax on those summits tall, 

That rise in pride above the ocean yonder ; 
Condemned around their sides to foam and brawl, 

Till earth's affinities be dashed asunder, 
By magazines of lightning, and arsenals of thunder ! 



DUAN I, 37 



XCIII. 



Behold where Moro Castle proudly towers, 

In giant form above the foaming surge, 
Where the Cigar Girl in the tempest cowers, 

Imploring heaven in a plaintive dirge ; 
The storm tost vessel homeward bound to urge, 

That bears her lover o'er the raging brine, 
While billows borne on whirlwinds sweep the verge 

Of heaven ! — In prayer now let us join : 
O Lord ! we bend submissive to thy will divine ! 

THE CIGAR girl's SONG. 

1. 

Shrill whistles the wind through Mount Pan's rough recesses, 

And curls the white foam on the waves of the sea ; 
Fast trickle the raindrops from these raven tresses ; 

O had I the shade of the Palmetto tree ! 
Now washed are the vales by the streams of the mountains. 

The sound of the torrents vibrates on my ear ; 
The surges respond to the roar of the fountains, 

And bleached in the tempest doth Moro appear. 



But I gaze for Alphonso in vain o'er the billows, 

No ship heaves in view on the wings of the gale, 
Then my brow shall be decked with a garland of willows. 

While I breathe to the ocean my sorrowful tale. 
O ! each proud surge that over yon sandy beach dashes, 

Resounds like the knell of Alphonso away ; 
For perhaps at this moment the proud billow washes. 

The cheeks which e'er told of a heart warm and gay. 



38 DON PAEZ. 



Alphonso ! how oft have we chatted together, 

And laughed at the storm as it howled through the sky ; 
While I rolled my cigar, full regardless of weather. 

And thou toldst how the waves tossed thy ship moun- 
tain high. 
But the tale now, with vengeance, on memory presses, 

Thou liest, perhaps, at the foot of the wave. 
No more to enjoy thy Love's tender caresses 

Cold, cold, deep entombed in a dark ocean grave ! 

4. 

Then a wreath of the willow ; — a wreath of the willow ; 

I'll weave for Alphonso, to circle my brow ; 
Adieu, to the peace of the soft downy pillow, -, 

While his vessel a tempest tost ocean doth plow. 
O, welcome my boy to thy fond girl's embraces, 

O welcome, O welcome, to port and to me ; 
The marble shall lose all its deep furrowed traces. 

Ere fades from my heart the impression of thee. 

xciv. 

What land is that off Cuba's coast. 

That holds to view its lovely groves and vines ? 
A second paradise, that seems to boast 

Of fruits Hesperian ? — 'Tis the Isle of Pines, 
Yclept by tongue of Spaniards, " Los Jardines,'' 

From its fertility thus aptly named ; 
East lies Turk's island on the gulf's confines, 

For its saline crystallizations famed. 
Whereon by wretched man existence scarce is claimed. 



DUAN I. 



xcv. 



39 



Now to the Southward let us turn our eyes, 

Where savage cliffs their craggy forms disclose ; 
And forests seem to wave low in the skies, 

Where late the deepest draught of human woes. 
Was drunk by foes contending fierce with foes. 

While fire-eyed rage in Saint Domingo burned. 
Fell insurrection, belching blood, arose, 

The laws of Nature, God and man she spurned, 
Till by the weight of blood the civil scale was turned. 

xcvi. 

Washington, Bolivar ! your names shall stand 

The time-proof trophies of the rights of man ; 
Twin sons of Freedom on the Western land ; 

A charm against the chains of Ottoman, 
Of king, of czar, of sultan or of khan, 

Or monarchs proud of any other name. 
In shape of league, of army, or of clan ; 

Our rights the drum and trumpet shall proclaim. 
Till elements dissolve in universal flame. 

XCVII. 

Nature maintains the principle to purge 

Herself of poisons lurking in her veins ; 
Volcanoes cleanse the eructating surge, 

Whilst atmosphere the lightning's flash sustains ; 
Thus electricity triumphant reigns, 

Ofttimes assisted by the magnet's force ; 
The human mind this principle maintains. 

And truth may bawl until her lungs are hoarse, 
If reason quell not prejudice within its source. 



40 DON PAEZ. 



XCVIII. 



And wars in governments are requisite, 

Corruption from their vitals to detrude ; 
There is a point upon which when they hit, 

They must be purified by human blood, — 
Hence factions, broils, and famines, are withstood — 

And why ? The civil balance will not stand 
Long in quiescence though artfully planned ; 

Ambition shakes the beam with impious hand, 
For ever reaching forth to grasp the gilded wand. 

xcix. 

The patriot upon the watch-tower stands 

To guard the citadel of liberty ; 
The politician there a place demands 

To watch the wind with faith and constancy. 
With it to veer with sheer consistency ; 

The first a pillar is in Freedom's dome. 
The last, a weathercock, or mote he be 

Upon the public dial-plate ; a gnome 
That points from whence the solar rays of office come. 



High bounds the vessel o'er the brawling spray ; 

The angry clouds bespeak a stormy night ; 
Upon the waves the wanton north winds play, 

Nor flits a ray of intervening light — 
Now the great God walks forward in his might. 

Frail man is highest when bowed low in prayer ; 
Why tremble we, at perils with afi'right, 

If he who rules the seas the dangers bear ; — 
Above, a God exists, and he is now their share. 

d ■ 6 



DUAN I. 41 



CI. 



But lo ! a beacon flashes on the sight, 

While rolls the bark upon its stormy bed- 
Like angel beckons through the pitchy night, — 

" LufF, luff!" — for why ? — breakers are fast ahead. 
Where without pilotage they dare not tread. 

Back through the storm then, Lear-like they must go ; 
The light recedes — 'tis gone — O source of dread : — 

The waves rush high, and loud the night-winds blow. 
Their ship and thou, O Lord ! were now their stays below. 

cii. 
'Tis morn, — the wind assumes a softer tone, 

The howling storm its latest puff has blown ; 
At eve a pilot boards them ; and is thrown, 

The anchor, till another night is gone ; — 
The morn returns, the breezes faintly moan ; 

Up through the reefs they ride — ^the bay's their own ; 
A fairer day on man hath seldom shone ; — 

The ship and crew must now be left alone, 
And in the yawl, a score of miles must row the Don. 

cm. 

Ere he the city of Mobile command. 

The eve advances, night begins to fall ; 
The twilighl flitters faintly on the strand. 

And Venus lights her lamp upon the wall ; 
The shoals obstruct the passage of the yawl :-^ 

The crows and gulls around them cease to fly — 
Gone to their roosts, perhaps, at nature's call. 
When crows, and gulls, and daws begin to cry, 
An eagle 's oft discovered soaring in the sky. 
For small birds they permit to pass unheeded by. 



=# 



42 DON PAEZ. 



CIV. 



Mobile is on a hill with sand enough ; — 

Would more contribute to thy satisfaction ? — 
With swamps around, where vegetable stuff 

Of every kind, exists in putrefaction ; 
Here, the moschettoes vex one to distraction, 

And vapors soar with death upon their pinions : 
Pale fevers too, of miasma extraction. 

And of mortality the active minions — 
But, lo ! the coffin-lid is screwed, and there end all opinions. 

cv. 

In port he is — he wants some recreation. 

And doubtless, friendly readers, so do you ; 
For, I am sure you need some renovation. 

Now you have read this moping Duan through ; 
For charity permit the bard to sue, 

And oh, stern critic ! be not too severe, 
Nor thus much of his straggling song eschew ; — 

For, of his rhymes, small portion endeth here, 
And many a better line shall greet the public ear. 



6 O 



D U AN II. 

INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY 
or THE LATE 

THOMAS W. GILMER, 

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. 



DON P AEZ 

DUAN II. 



Once more upon the waters ! yet once more. 
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
That knows his rider. 

Byron. 

The bard shall scorn pedantic laws. 
And as the ancient art could stain, 
Achievements on the storied pane. 
Irregularly traced and plann'd ; — 
But yet so glowing and so grand ! 
So shall he strive in changeful hue. 
Field, feast and combat to renew. 

W. Scott. 

Dames, knights, and arms, and love. 

HooWs Ariosto. 



@t 



DUAN II 



The packet out her canvas throws ; 
She kicks the wharf, and off she goes ; 
Adieu, awhile, to crabs and crows, 
To oysters, frogs, and moschettoes ; 
Adieu to the emporium of filth; 
On glides Paez to Egypt's counterpart. 
To lands that well repay the planter's tilth. 

Through scenes which fill with buoyancy the heart, 
Towards the Mississippi, the great mart 

Of many waters, the backbone of streams, 
Both great and small, that fill up half the chart 
Of the United States, and wherewith teems 
A multitude of lands, rich in poetic themes. 

II. 

Like an armed Pallas rising fresh from ocean, 

Fort Bowyer with its flagstaff spiring o'er 
The brick built battlements, whose flag in motion, 

Seems swelling with the plenitude of power, 
That's crouched beneath it, flippant doth it soar 

Above the sleeping thunders ! while it mocks 
The angry waves that howl along the shore, 

And shakes, Minerva like, its threat'ning locks. 
That speak of War's red thunderbolts and lightning shocks. 



48 DON PAEZ 

III. 

Behold the shoals composed of waves of sand, 

Belched forth by the convulsions of the sea, 
And driven by a hurricane inland, 

Which in thy bay, Mobile, salutes the e'e ; 
When mighty winds howled o'er the ocean, free 

To breathe its billows on the trembling shore ; 
Remark the isle of Dauphin on their lee, 

Where tufts of trees beyond the seabeach hoar, 
Wave o'er Saint Mary's, which is now no more, 
Deep on that day engulfed 'mid the hurricane's deep roar. 

IV. 

Search ye for relics ? — None are to be found, 

Save here and there a buoy marks out a wave 
Of sand, thrown up, when by such waves were drowned 

Dauphin's inhabitants, and havoc gave 
To greedy ruin a capacious grave ; 

The pelican, the gull, the carrion crow, here flies, 
And in the brine their lazy pinions lave, 

111 sorted fry for funeral obsequiesy 
But ruins there are none for brooding sympdiihies. 

V. 

A chain of isles skirt the indented shore. 

Variety sits empress o'er the scene ; 
The billows boil, and foam, and hiss, and roar ; 

The sky's cerulean blue ; — the clumps of green, 
That crown the isles ; — the waves flashing between, 

Giving the eye an avenue of light. 
The ocean flames with many spangled sheen, 

Object succeeds to object quick as sight. 
As through the Rigolet's the canvas wings its flight. 



DUAN II. 49 



Upon a mole whose base the channel sweeps, 

Petit Coquilles stands looking o'er the glade, 
That in stagnation to the southward sleeps ; 

A penumbra over the moors is laid ;• — 
A compromise between sunshine and shade ; 

All is repose, save a few short intrusions 
Of frogs, which for their nightly serenade, 

Are tuning up their guttural elusions, 
In gratitude to Nature for such bright mfusions. 

VII. 

Petit Coquilles stands looking o'er the plain. 

The inlet, ocean, islands, lakes, and moors ; 
A silent lion brandishing his mane ! 

Upon the Pass observe the embrasures, 
Through which volcano-like — assailed — it roars, 

Like ocean billows, vomiting its ire — 
The vials of its wrath raging it pours 

On foemen who to enter here aspire, 
And hurls on their devoted heads its tornadoes of fire ! 

VIII. 

But mark yon sailor, one of Nature's freaks, 

Whose legs would grace a Venedotia goat ; 
With a pair of high tempest-bleached cheeks, 

Each bone whereof would make an Indian boat ; 
His mouth is like that of a roasted shoat. 

As he doth heave and grin against the weather, * 
" Hell of a gust !" comes growling from his throat. 

While in the gale the topsail acts the feather, 
" A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together !" 



S^: 



50 DON PAEZ. 



IX. 



Like two soap bubbles in a pot of lye, 

Two eyes stand, one on each side of his face ; 
Which look as old as the pole star, or nigh ; 

His nose between them occupies a place 
Perhaps midway ; — I measure not the space, 

But it projects like a woodpecker's bill ; 
Or gnomon of a dial, with much grace. 

The pommel of a Spanish saddle will 
Give an idea of his chin without my quill. 



And thou hast seen a leather-pinioned bat, 

Then fix its wings upon a human skull ; 
And, doubtless, thou wilt have his ears as pat. 

As a bald head belongeth to a gull ; 
Two feet he has, and both of them are full 

Where other men's are hollow, and a neck, 
That as a gander's would resist a pull 

As hard, and colored like the vessel's deck. 
The filaments whereof would measure full a peck. 

XI. 

Thou too, no doubt, hast seen a cotton-gin, 

Imagine then his wide expanse of mouth. 
When he perchance doth open it to grin. 

With grinders instar dentium uncouth ; 
A head of hair that points to North and South, 

And of the compass, every point between ; 
Skin not unlike a rawhide parched with drouth. 

And bleached with avalanches. Thin and lean, 
He has not juice enough to engender a gangrene. 



-^ 



DUAN I. 51 

XII. 

On Ponchartrain a score of vessels ride, 

Schooners and sloops, like swans in merry mood, 
With canvas spread o'er its smooth surface wide ; 

Thrice blessed, Paez, that thou such scenes hast wooed, 
When none of the world's tumult did intrude. 

To break the charm which o'er thy fancy hung. 
To interrupt such charming solitude. 

Where Nature smiles for ever gay and young. 
And wreaths of poesy are from her mantle flung. 



I love to wander o'er the boundless sea. 

While my heart swells with its inspiring breeze, 
Where glows the soul with gay hilarity. 

Free as a sunbeam on the Pyrenees ; 
Where human ills her current cannot freeze ; 

Above this dirty ball, its dirty race, 
Exulting, triumphing in her release. 

She contemplates the ocean's dark blue face. 
And looks through Nature on to Nature's resting-place. 

XIV. 

Paez wooed ocean in his majesty. 

When marching in the terror of his might. 
When to and fro, his waves rolled sluggishly. 

And when he donn'd his robes of foaming white ; 
Yea he did woo him both by day and night, 

In calm and tempest, and upon the whole. 
He still did love him, and would woo him quite, 

From the antarctic to the arctic pole. 
Where'er his surges sweep, his cloud-piled billows roll. 



=^ 



52 DON PAEZ. 

XV. 

To him spoke Nature with ten thousand tongues ; 

But little of the world then he did crave ; 
Men, insects, reptiles, beasts, she blessed with lungs, 

Yet some of them not much of wisdom gave : 
Wisdom she kept herself in grot, or cave ; 

Or some sequestei'ed spot far from the crowd, 
That march on to destruction, like the wave 

From some far sea, a dense and rolling cloud, 
That breaks on some rock-girded shore with bowlings loud. 

XVI. 

And he did seek her on the mountain's brow ; 

For her he crossed rocks, cliffs, ravines, and streams. 
And the dark sky-encompassed main did plough. 

Where the shark prowls and the wild frigat screams ; 
He sought her in his thoughts and in his dreams. 

To where the nuns live and the high-priest shrives 
His penitents ; but pried not in her schemes, 

To do all this would take a life of lives ; 
But bounteously enough to those who ask she gives. 

XVII. 

Paez's blood was of an ancient line. 

In Druid's vein 'twas said it did begin ; 
A wreath of Mistletoe then he would twine, 

Around his brow when he a wreath did win ; 
But laurels fell upon him very thin ; — 

Yea, thin as eagle's plumes on turkey cock, 
To laurelled brows he was remote of kin ; 

Ne deemed he share to hold in such a stock, 
Before the knell of time should drown the watch and clock. 



DUAN II. 53 

XVIII. 

But to his tale ; the land once more is hailed, 

Where spreads the country, in a wide champaign 
Of swamps, lakes, bayous lavishly entailed. 

Rivers, woodlands, fields, prairies, gardens, cane. 
From Sabine to the shores of Ponchartrain ; 

From Natchitoches around by the Balize, 
To where Attackapas salutes the Main ; 

Here beauty smiles in the lap of disease 
And Nature her bounties bestows of all degrees. 



What though full many a blessing here prevails, 

What though man feasts on fruits and rolls in flowers, 
A bitter curse each blessing countervails. 

And fell disease lurks in his fairest bowers — 
Mortality parades her haggard powers 

In every shape explored by human ken. 
And thus of human life the essence sours ; 

Yet, as in other parts, we meet with men 
Here, who measure out their threescore years and ten. 



The tide spreads from the lake through the morass 

That lies between the river and the lake ; 
Alluvions choke up the quondam pass 

Of Mississippi ; mud piled flake on flake. 
And dykes forbid the course he now would take — 

The selfsame route through creeks, bayous and bogs. 
Where animals reside of every make. 

Among the black moss, trees, grass, rotten logs, 
Alligators, Indians, Spaniards, French and frogs. 



54 DON PAEZ 

XXI. 

Through a dark, frowning, dismal swamp they wag, 

To where the gardens on its margins bloom, 
Like the fair Graces smiling on a hag. 

Or Eden blushing at hell's horrid gloom ; 
With every glowing tint and sweet perfume, 

Alcoves enchanting, beds of flowers, repasts 
That might almost give rapture to the tomb. 

Round New Orleans of all tongues, nations, castes, 
Whose wharves ahead present a forestry of masts. 

XXII. 

Daughter of Babel ! world in miniature 

Of every tongue, mother of every tone, 
From the French cadence to the bullfrog's roar, 

Of every color brought from every zone ; 
Great queen thou art upon thy muddy throne 

Surrounded by winged myrmidons, a band 
That sing both night and day with many a drone, 

With spears as keen and piercing as a brand, 
Which scarce the sevenfold shield of Ajax could withstand. 

XXIII. 

Daughter of Babel ! nathless thou art fair 

Indeed ; thou art right lovely to behold : 
Beauty thou hast — forsooth thou hast — and rare ; 

In thee, nature and art their charms unfold, 
Perennial verdure free from winter's cold ; — 

Greensward in many a handsome plot is found, 
Within each vacant square, an infant wold, 

With China-trees studded in contour round 
Delightful terraces and promenading ground. 

@ O 



DUAN II. " 55 

XXIV. 

But ah ! 'tis beauty on a deathbed, the 

Comilhuitlapohuallitzli* 
Gives sacrifice to mortality 

Of the Pentacosiomedimni, 
Thalamitas, Zugitae, and Theti,f 

Death sits upon thy form like a scrofula 
Or incubus, the Tenalpohualli:}: 

Shows the grim monster like a tarantula 
Or other loathsom.e thing, nestled in a campanula. 

XXV. 

My blood runs cold — chills, curdles in my veins, 

The catacombs throw horror on the scene ; 
Horror, deep brooding o'er the prospect reigns, 

Where human bones in careless piles are seen 
With fragments of putrescent flesh still green. 

The trees are hung with feral scarfs around, 
In mourning o'er this mortal wreck unclean — 

While marble obelisks do mark the ground, 
Rising in modest pride o'er each more humble mound. 

XXVI. 

The carrion crow among the tombs appears. 

Or over them his hateful pinions plies ; 
With bill voracious from the bones he tears 

The fetid flesh, teeming with swarms of flies ; 
While here and there the graveless coflSns rise. 

By springing waters from their stations thrown ; 
Here one is floating, there another lies, 

With their cold tenants pitiless, unknown. 

Who cannot claim the friendly tribute of a stone. 

* The ritual calendar used by the ancient Mexican Priests for indi- 
cating the return of sacrifices. — Humboldt. 

t The different grades of citizens at Athens. — Rollins, 
X Mexican civil calendar. — Humboldt. 



& 



56 DON PAEZ. 

XXVII. 

Earth with the bones of human kind is strewn, 

Who once exhaled the breath of life, as we 
Do now ; their impalpable dust is sown, 

As by the winds ; the firefly galaxy 
Of human minds, flickers, then as the tree 

It falls, as falls, alas I all human pride : 
Man ! mark the doom of thy proud family. 

What more can sculptured marble say beside 
Than they were born, they lived, and ah ! — ^they died. 

xxvin. 

Daughter of Babel ! reservoir of sin — 

Kfac simile of the human race I 
Every condition, every shade of skin. 

Within thy limits seems to hold a place, 
Where sparkles the pale cross, emblem of grace I 

That faintly gleams like a dim ray of light — 
Of dark despondency athwart the face, 

When the last beam of hope hath taken flight. 
And thickly gather death's dark mists upon the sight. 

XXIX. 

What noise is that? — pshaw I — nothing but the drays 

Rolling their sluggish wheels upon the stones ; 
But hark again, the signal gun betrays 

The dreadful butcherwork of flesh and bones ; 
Clattering the horses sweep, the pavement groans ; — 

Like one great hive the Western army hums, 
While through the humid air the bugle drones ; 

Shrill squeaks the fife, loud bray the clamorous drums ; 
Gramercy \ 'tis the foe ; alas ! he comes \ he comes ! 



DUAN II. 57 

XXX. 

There comes an echo ! 'tis the hostile tread 

Of warring armies battling in the vale ; 
There comes an echo ! through the clouds of red 

The guns discharge their flights of leaden hail, 
Rattling o'er helmet, sword, and targe, and mail. 

There comes an echo ! piercing, wild and shrill ; 
The shriek, the groan, the writhing howl, the wail, 

Like wild, death echoes rolling from the hill; 
Blood here flows free, and gore-mouthed Havoc swills her fill. 



The enemy is at the gates. 
And anxiously for plunder waits ; 
No time to spend in long debates — 
On with your musquetrie ! 



2. 

The watchword now is fight or fly ;■ 
On, on, ye brave who dare to die. 
Or live, your names to glorify : — 
To the artillerie. 



In silent night the armies meet. 
Prepared for fight in mail complete, 
On ground that scarce sustains their feet, 
In dire hostilitie ! 



nS) 



o 

58 DON PAEZ. 

.:.4;-:: 
Now drum and trump in concert rang, 
With clash of swords and trumpet's clang, 
And boldly every freeman sang 
His cry of victorie. 

5. 

While loud the drum repeats the flam. 
And fiercely each disputes the palm, 
The Britons fight for Packenham, 
But God for Libertie. 

XXXI. 

Mark where the smoke in eddying columns rolled. 

And, lightning- winged, War's emissaries flew. 
Like wrecks upon the whirlwind : — uncontrolled 

They howled for carnage, while a bloody dew 
Suffused the landscape, and the fire-showers grew 

Still hotter, like a simultaneous clash 
Of thunderbolts, while streamed the lightnings through 

The stormy scene. The guns' report the flash 
Conceive, while through the battle-fires the chargers dash. 

XXXII. 

Chalmette ! thine is the field of chivalry, 

Where loudly rang the drum's discordant throat ; 
Where echoed hoarse the battle's revelry, 

And flashed the swords o'er each half-sunken moat, 
While of her gamut Discord sang each note ; 

What play was acted here yon mounds may tell ; 
Yon ball now shrouded in its earthen coat, — 

And on that day full many such there fell, — 
Hath sent some soul perhaps to heaven or to hell. 

6 — 



^ 1 ? 

DUAN II. 59 

xxxm. 
Chalmette ! thine is the memorable field, 

That brought a constellation new to light 
Upon Columbia's star-spangled shield ; 

The last, yet not least glorious in fight. 
Hail Sister of the West, hail to the night 

That witnessed here Albion's overthrow, 
And dove-eyed peace from Heaven descending bright : 

New Orleans ! Jackson ! names the world shall know, 
While Fame, all thunder-mouthed a trumpet has to blow. 

XXXIV. 

Thou field of thunder, lightning, death and fame — 

Farewell ! the tribute of an humble rhyme 
Is offered, sparks of the poetic flame 

May blazon the liberty's paradigm, 
Flashing through nations, sounding through each clime, 

Like thunder on the mountains, while the foes 
Of nature thunder-strike the shield of Time, 

And earth heave her last groan amid the throes 
Of earthquakes, fire, brimstone, thunder, lightning, volcanoes. 

XXXV. 

Father of waters,* now on thee I stand, 

And many a dream doth o'er my fancy steal, 
Of many a rude, untutored, Indian land, 

That ne'er the sweets of civil life did feel ; 
Their tale thy murmurs seemingly reveal ; 

In thee methinks I hear their groans and cries, 
While of their liberty, the fatal seal, 

Imagination, lightning-winged, descries. 
That flickers, sparkles, flashes, dances, spangles in the skies. 

* Mechassippi, or Mississippi, in. the Indian language signifies 
Father of Waters. — St. Pierre. 



60 DON PAEZ. 

XXXVI. 

Father of Waters ! thee I would invoke ; 

Not like the Hindoo at his idoFs feet ; 
Not like the Fakir, bowed beneath the yoke 

Of his wild superstition, but in terms discreet. 
Such as the modest Muses may deem meet, 

While wooing nature for her mental spoils. 
Father of Waters ! thus it is I greet 

Thee, for whom full many a fountain boils ; 
Whereof ten thousand branches sweep ten thousand soils 



Monarch of floods ! thy many spangled crown 

Holds empire over many a wandering horde ; 
O'er Indian, Frank, Spaniard, Columbian thrown, 

Where man drags loathsome chains, or stalks a lord ; 
O'er nature rude, and civilized fraud ; 

O'er divers features, colors, tongues, and names ; 
O'er mountains lofty, vales and forests broad ; 

O'er sunburnt squaws, and veiled and powdered dames ; 
To drink, to bathe, to live, each thv assistance claims. 



Conflux of streams ! bashaw with many tails, 

Where prairies wave, and the magnolia blows ; 
Where many an old relic now prevails ; 

Ten thousand herds of deer and buffaloes ; 
Where many a flock of grazing cattle lows ; 

The beaver fashions out his small domain ; 
The bear, secure among his drifts of snows ; 

All these are thine, ere on thy Deltic plain 
Thy waters congregate, and headlong cleave the main. 



DUAN II. 61 



XXXIX. 



The rush of waters ! volumes roll along, 

A ridge above each levee-guarded shore ; 
The war of waters ! deep, majestic, strong, 

Wherein Maelstroms in whirling eddies roar ! 
Sawyers and planters vacillating o'er 

The sweeping current ever and anon ! 
The march of waters ! down the highlands pour 

Confluent rivers mingling into one. 
Rushing, warring, marching, dashing, flashing, foaming on ! 

XL. 

On, thundergust of waters ! drive thy strength, 

From distant regions vaulting to the deep ! 
On, measure thy four thousand miles of length, 

And drift on drift dispose in many a heap ! 
On, hurricane of waters ! wildly sweep 

Hills, mountains, valleys, with thy chafing tide ! 
On, of alluvions thy harvests reap. 

Transport them in the fulness of thy pride, [wide. 

And spread them through thy self-made lowlands far and 



The steamer growls, she's raising steam ; a throng 

Of passengers both deck and cabin shows ; 
The bell tolls her departure loud and long. 

Till splashing, flashing, from the wharf she goes. 
Belching and voiding steam with heaves and throes ! 

Pleasure obtains, the joke, the laugh, the song ; 
And hob and nob for each the goblet flows : 

A certain blessing this, snatched from among 
The ills of life and the oppressive sons of wrong. 



DON PAEZ. 



XLII. 



O, that to me some power had bequeathed 

(Since through such scenes it is my lot to rove) 
Eyes formed of thunderbolts, with lightnings wreathed, 

To flash through field, and swamp, and stream, and grove. 
That all their beauties might by me be wove 

Into one garland which might never fade ; 
And wisdom, wherewithal their worth to prove. 

Imagination without mind arrayed 
Is like an idiot apparelled in brocade. 

XLIII. 

The sun sinks low ; he's gone : the crepuscle 

Smiles faintly on the shadows that suffuse 
The landscape ; playful, ambling breezes cool 

The atmosphere ; while it sheds its dews 
Upon the herbage, and the owl tuwhoos 

In the morasses ; the cigalas thrill 
Their melodies in concert on the muse ; 

The beetle whirs along in accents shrill, 
And chirps the noisy grasshopper upon the hill. 

XLIV. 

The crepuscule in many-hued array, 

Elicits to the moralist a tale. 
See the young mind first opening into day. 

With fragrant hope, like an Arabian gale ; 
The passions' scorching rays in youth prevail ; 

A steadier glow in manhood do we find ; 
In age the faculties begin to fail ; 

The twilight comes ; — the vital day's declined — 
The morn, the noon, the eve, the twilight of the mind. 



^ 



DUAN II. 63 

XLV. 

Beneath the dense accumulating mass, 

Which in the Spring the Mississippi wields, 
Each levee breaks in many a crevasse, 

Nor longer the adjacent country shields ; 
But, by superior force borne down, it yields ; 

The sunbeams falling on the wide extent 
Give lustre to the irrigated fields ; 

Where mirages appear with brilliants shent, 
Like stars and planets sprinkled o'er the firmament. 



This is not so, save when the mountain snows 

Their vernal tribute to the ocean pay, 
And seldom then, to such a height it flows. 

As when Paez remarked the grand display, 
What time through yards and fields it made its way. 

And hamlets, villas, gardens, all immersed, 
Presented scenes of terror and dismay. 

While up and down the levees stood dispersed 
Men, with their hoes and spades, prepared to meet the worst. 

XLVII. 

The French bagpipes are heard in concert sweet 

Among the fens ; — delightful serenade ! 
To charm the solitary palmer's feet ! 

Sing on, ye sweet mud-birds ! each to his trade : 
Worse concerts far than yours have oft been played ; 

Sing on, and charm the forests and wigwams ; 
Like choirs of war-drums beating a chamade, 

Bass, treble, tenor, counter, rolls and flams. 
Your rare concert would drown the horns of fifty rams. 



64 DON PAEZ. 

XLVIII. 

In noisy chorus, yet sing on ! 

All nature's concerts are of contrasts made,* 
Gastriloquists of bogs ! and much was won. 

When Jericho by dint of sound was laid 
Low in the dust, by dame Rahab betrayed ; 

Stick, stick, to precedent at every time. 
Where one sheep ventures in the flock will wade ; 

And then some bard in creaking catgut rhyme, 
Shall sing for you panegyrics in strains sublime. 



Aye, then some poet laureate of frogs, 

Shall place you on Parnassus' cloud-capt height. 
And wrap you in a mist of golden fogs, 

Beyond the pinnacle of glory bright, 
Flashing your dazzling beams full moons of light ; 

As rocks of ice or Chimborazo tall. 
Or Thibet's Peaks stupendous to the sight. 

But earthquakes e'en Parnassus may appal ; 
Stand firm, for frogs from such high points are apt to fall. 

L. 

I was sent hither not to change the world, 

For many a fault, no doubt, do I possess ; 
Let not the shafts of judgment then be hurled. 

By me, when God above must give redress ; 
Yet each may drop a tear upon distress ; 

And ease a heart that feels for others' woes, 
O let them weep o'er blasted happiness ; 

O'er the scorched soul in lethargic repose. 
For silent is the heart that with its griefs o'erflows. 

* St. Pierre. 
@ ■ • & 



1g 

DUAN 11. 65 

LI. 

Men are the creatures of mere circumstance, 

Upon the sea of accidents adrift ; 
And life, at best, is but a game of chance, 

Where, as in games of chess, they shift and shift, 
Some in pursuit of honor, others thrift ; 

Each one whereof himself the standard makes. 
And vainly deems it an uncommon gift, 

By which to judge of others; nor awakes. 
From such a dream, ere death his own just tribute takes. 

LII. 

Men are mere ants upon this molehill earth. 

Who toil, and sorrow, travail, grieve, and fret. 
The slaves of trouble from their very birth ; 

Each will be happy, but is not so yet ; 
Nor shall be ere the spider spreads his net, 

Among the grass and weeds that mingled wave. 
Between the rough and rude carved stones that set 

To mark the spot, whereat the sexton gave 
The clay-cold corse to its last narrow bed — the grave. 

• LIII. 

Minions of Mammon ! here's a tale for you. 

This is a fashion that all must embrace ; 
Learn hence unto each other to be true, 

Nor fashion out the highway of disgrace, 
Without just cause for any of your race. 

Mankind should not with calumny be branded. 
Because to virtue riches may give place, 

And loudly reasons justice evenhanded. 
Where no confidence is placed none ought to be demanded. 





66 DON PAEZ. 

LIV. 

Should you elicit to an honest man, 

By a suspicious manner, look or tone, 
That in him place no confidence you can, 

His feelings never will such treatment own. 
But will revolt, and he'll indignant frown 

You and your tongue-felt friendship from his sight. 
Misfortune's rest on God's decrees alone. 

And his decrees, undoubtedly, are right ; 
The soul that trusts in him no human ills can blight. 

LV. 

The soul should never over sorrow whine, 

Though the bruised heart repeatedly be wrung ; 
Man in his highest state is as the vine. 

Which from the fraudful prop to which it clung, 
May by one of dame Fortune's freaks be flung ; 

While torn the tender tendrils from their hold, 
The objects it forsakes to which it clung ; 

Bruised, mangled, rent, all piteous to behold, 
Down, down, it tumbles, clump on clump, and fold on fold. 

LVI. 

So fares the fruit that ripens ere its time ; 

So fares the reckless plant that buds too soon ; 
And so, for aught I know, may fare this rhyme, 

Which may, perhaps, be set to the wrong tune ; 
Of a dark wintry sky, who asks a boon, 

Takes Nature when the dame is rather hoary, 
But thee, kind Nature, I will not impugn. 

So sounds this horn of my eventful story. 
Many a sun that rose in clouds has set in glory. 



DUAN ir. 67 

LVII. 

And some dilemmas have full many horns, 

The prongs whereof we scarce know which to seize ; 
We search for flowers and we are pricked by thorns, 

And give offence where we attempt to please ; 
We're like the man who many sunbeams sees. 

And fain would climb one of them to the sun ; 
We make a grasp, and the illusion flees, 

His balance he doth lose — nothing is won. 
But headlong down he falls below where he begun. 

LVIII. 

" Poverty is the nurse of Genius."* Why I'f 

A sea unruffled casteth forth no pearls ; — 
No lightnings flash along a cloudless sky ! — 

Athwart a placid sky no thunder hurls 
Its forked bolts ! No giant billow curls 

Upon a waveless sea ; no tyrant bends 
To luxury. 'Tis Poverty unfurls 

Fair Wisdom's banners, while Genius ascends 
Sublime, and with its own ethereal spirits blends. 

LIX. 

" Poets are poor," the connoisseurs exclaim ; 

It 's true, their purses do not hold their brains ; 
They spend their lives in search of other game. 

Than growling over pennyweights and grains ; 
The virtuous a noble mind sustains, 

And does not seek to strip such as may fall 
To add some pence to ill-begotten gains ; 

I've seen the wicked move in gorgeous pall. 
But lo ! their end is as the wormwood mixed with gall. 

* Dr. Johnson. 

f Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass ; or loweth the ox 
over his fodder ? Job vi., 5. 



68 DON PAEZ. 

LX. 

Let Fortune's children frisk about like squirrels 

Spoiled with much pampering — envy I hate ; 
They should not be distressed at others' perils ; 

Their heels and heads can't quarrel about weight- 
Should they, their stomachs would end the debate, 

For all their acquisitions centre there ; 
Then let them bask in Fortune's smiles, and prate 

Like jackdaws in the vernal sun, O rare ! — 
Upon the housetops if they please, or anywhere. 



Humph ! can we grudge frivolity ? — Fm sure 

There's nothing we should imitate but souls. 
And some there are entirely immature 

In this respect, and grovel on like moles 
Amid their yellow dust ; the jackdaw trolls 

His native notes, though in Golconda's plains — 
While eagles scream their songs sublime from holes 

Or cells ', see Tasso's cell, then hear his strains, 
And '' Hing your fiddles up to sleep," and spare your pains. 



In Nature's bankstock some have many shares ; 

Who calls this penury, himself is poor ; 
He cannot separate the wheat from tares — 

An empty purse doth genius oft endure ; 
But empty skulls ! oh me ! shut, sliut the door, 

And say, good John, I'm sick, Fm very sick !- 
He's odd, eccentric, singular. What more ? 

Genius is a comet which must stick 
Upon the verge of Nature's grand climacteric. 



=-^ 



DUAN II. 69 

LXIII. 

And one, in sooth, that seldom culminates 

Ere 'tis disorbed, and time hath set his foot 
Upon it, while it thus transfigurates ; 

Then, through the world its scintillations shoot, 
When envy has no further cause to bruit 

Her foaming calumnies with serpent sting. 
None but the sweetest fruits the birds will suit ; 

On fairest flowers the toad its slime doth fling, 
As dark as Erebus, beyond man's fathoming. 

LXIV. 

" Gin and water is the true Hippocrene ;"* 

With this position I cannot agree ; 
'Tis poverty or love as has been seen. 

That tunes the heart and soul to poesy. 
When scowls the tempests of adversity — 

Which doom the soul to sorrow, grief and care, 
Like some lone wreck upon life's troubled sea. 

She shrinks aghast, retires, and braves despair 
Within herself, by reaping consolation there. 

LXV. , 

" Knowledge is power" ;-\ this is fallacy. 

For " Science is not science till revealed," 
And knowledge will not pass for currency — 

From poverty her devotees to shield, 
In neglect and obscurity concealed. 

And bring them forward with their minds unfurled : — 
But this, alas ! must be, their fate is sealed. 

Till suns and stars in one vortex be whirled. 
And funnelled be, in one abyss, the fragments of the world. 

* Byron's Don Juan. t Bacon. 



70 DON PAEZ. 

LXVI. 

How beautiful it is to contemplate 

A Genius, wading through a mirky cloud, 
Which he cannot completely dissipate, 

Like Night's fair queen enveloped in a shroud — 
Certainly, Blacklock ! this must be allowed ; 

That 'tis most beautiful all must conceive ; 
Since 'tis attested by the venal crowd, 

Which praise, admire, then pity, blame and leave 
Him struggling, striving, whilst he has a sigh to heave. 

LXVII. 

So mused Paez, as on the steamer flew. 

Puffing and fluttering, with its little group ; — 
An isolated, yet a cheerful few, 

Confined, like chickens in a floating coop. 
Which the strained boiler might at one " fell swoop" 

Have nilled to see their friends and home again, 
By fire and water flung from prow to poop. 

Vanity of vanities, and all is vain. 
Men fall like withered leaves before the hurricane ! 

LXVIII. 

Deep swims " The Beaver ;"* she bears too much weight, 

The swollen current flashes o'er her sides ; 
Groaning beneath her passengers and freight, 

She slowly braves the Mississippi's tides; 
With all her strength through foaming waves she rides. 

While now and then the pilot's bell reveals 
Danger ahead ; her onward force subsides 

By reason of the stoppage of her wheels 5 
While at some drift tree's rude assault she creaks and reels. 
* Name of the steamboat. 

1i ■: 



DUAN II. 71 

LXIX. 

But too aquatic Don Paez has grown, 

The scenes around invite him to his tale ; 
Far in the back-ground the morasses frown, 

Recedes the foreground sloping to the vale, 
On either side, as up the stream they sail. 

The contour filled with cotton — sugar cane. 
Hedges, fences, vistas, too prevail, 

Houses, gardens, scattered o'er the plain. 
The fig, the orange, lemon, cypress, and peccane. 



Unlike that on the margins of the Nile, 

The soil doth here present a stiff black mould. 
Here lives the cayman, there the crocodile ; 

That soil is light and sandy, this is cold. 
And wet throughout by stream and fen and wold ; 

That produces alone by inundation, 
This is by no such requisite controlled ; 

Each is organic fraught with animation. 
And atmosphere is burdened by their quick gestation. 

LXXI. 

Now, mightiest vassal of old Ocean ! now, 

Paez doth bid thy frothing waves adieu, 
The fire-urged vessel whirls from thee, to plough 

One of thy vassals : — see the avenue 
In which they shoot, no longer to pursue 

Thy broad highway of waters, but to take 
A by-path. Slowly winds Red River through 

A fertile soil, o'ergrown with many a brake, 
Through which the wild duck whirs along with "quaick, 
quaick, quaick." 



— 

72 DON PAEZ. 

LXXII. 

The Rio Roxo's sluggish winding stream, 

Its turbid waves rolls slowly from afar ; 
Emerging from its flood the forests seem, 

And many a mark of violence they bear ; 
The winds arise, and howl, and whirl and tear 

The crackling branches from each groaning trunk. 
Torn, twisted, mangled, borne along the air, 

Or plashing down, in foaming eddies sunk, 
They lie, sob, soak, and rot, like a dismasted junk. 

LXXIII. 

Drear desolation marks the scene behind ; 

The swamp-owl sits and whoops his dismal tale ; 
To loathsome things, like Babylon, consigned. 

Here too, is heard the catamountain's wail ; 
Tarantulas and serpents too assail 

The eye ; — the bullfrog gurgles out his note, 
Upon the bank of the aquatic trail. 

That leads the progress of the gliding boat. 
And threads its way among the hills from parts remote. 

LXXIV. 

Like a bachelor in society, 

A lovely cottage here and there is spied, 
The only feature of variety. 

Encircled by a silent forest wide ; 
At intervals, upon the river's side. 

Some wood cutter's rude domicil is found ; 
An humble hovel looking o'er the tide, 

Or by its vernal freshets nearly drowned, 
Before whose door, for steamboat use, the cords abound. 



DUAN II. 73 

LXXV. 

Avoyelles, found in the wilderness, 

Some distance from the flood-gate of the West — 
The Mississippi — seems of happiness 

The blest abode. Misfortune here may rest, 
Secure from mockery, nor be oppressed 

By heartlessness which treads the weak in dust ; 
Here Genius might in genial wilds be blessed ; 

Here heart-struck sorrow might retire, nor trust 
No more to selfish man, ungrateful and unjust. 

LXXVI. 

Into red hills the lowlands gently swell. 

As on to Alexandria they steer ; 
At times is heard the tinkling of a bell, 

Which tells of herds of cattle ranging near 
Some residence ; while skirts of land appear 

Divested of their native growth ; resounds 
The axeman's strokes, and lopes the nimble deer 

Among the trees and copse ; the wide-mouthed hounds 
Reverberate their cries, — the huntsman's horn rebounds. 

LXXVII. 

Through mud, through mire, through woodlands and 
through fields. 

O'er broken causeways Paez wends his way, 
Where Cornucopise her tributes yields. 

And Foison doth in Ceres' lap display 
Her golden viands ; — ^jocund squirrels play 

Upon the boughs ; — the ringtailed pig squeaks by ; 
Baa ! cries the sheep upon the pasture grey ; 

The grunting hog turns up his pewter eye. 
Or, boh ! woh ! woh ! darts in the brake, his native sty. 



W 



r 

74 DON PAEZ. 

LXXVIII. 

Through a productive, nay, exhaustless soil, 

The bayou BeoufF creeps lazily along; 
Abundant harvests crown the planter's toil ; 

A land of flocks, and herds, and streams, and song! 
Of shepherds, shepherdesses, swains a throng. 

Nymphs, naiads, graces, more than I shall woo ; 
Gods, goddesses, to this region belong, 

From goat-legged Pan through the whole sylvan crew ; 
I sigh to one — the rest the pastoral bard may sue. 

MAID OF COTI, 

1. 

By those eyes of azure blue. 
Those lips as sweet as morning dew ; 
By those orbs that nightly shine. 
My heart, my dearest love, is thine. 
Fair maid ! ever dear shalt thou be to this breast, 
Whilst the beauteous magnolia shall bloom in the west. 

2. 

By that form I love to view, 

That heart too pure to be untrue ; 

Those cheeks that glow with artless love, 

My passion false no clime shall prove. 
Whilst memory continues with rapture to fly. 
Through the wilds of the South to the plains of Coti. 

3. 

Though, dearest maid ! the savage strolls, 
And many a deep blue river rolls 



DUAN II. 75 

Between my home and this sweet spot, 
Yet, love ! thou ne'er shalt be forgot, 
Till the orange refuses to put forth its bloom. 
And the Tropics be wrapped up in darkness and gloom. 



Maid of Coti ! though I go 
To northern climates clad in snow. 
Where tempests howl and northwinds blow. 
This heart for thee shall ever glow ; 
So long as the herds shall enliven the plains. 
The maid of Coti shall awaken my strains. 
Fair maid ! ever dear shalt thou be to this breast. 
Whilst the beauteous magnolia shall bloom in the west. 
Whilst memory continues with rapture to fly, 
Through the wilds of the South to the plains of Coti. 
Till the orange refuses to put forth its bloom. 
And the Tropics be wrapped up in darkness and gloom. 



How were the prairies formed, — the sage will ask ; 

Two Jesuits* a theory did frame 
Upon that point, which obviates my task : 

The herbage first ignited was by flame ; 
Spring freshets then with depositions came. 

And o'er them laid strata of slime and mud, 
Impregnated with seeds of grass, which claim 

The right of growth where trees and shrubs once stood, 
Whose germs were by the alluvial floods subdued. 

* La Hontan and Lafiteau. 



© 



76 DON PAEZ. 



LXXX. 



So was Rome smothered by a foreign soil, 

When once the bulwarks of her virtue fell ; 
Those oaks which War's fierce tempests could not spoil, 

The ferment nursed within themselves did quell, 
When Gothic war drums beat her feral knell ; 

And thus did Greece and Grecian science fail. 
Of civil feuds beneath the direful spell, 

Nay, such events incline History's scale, 
Americans, perhaps, may profit by the tale. 

LXXXI. 

Saint Ildefonso plucked a precious gem 

From the escutcheon of once potent Spain, 
While stars were falling from her diadem, 

Which she did from earth's richest regions drain, 
Never, alas ! to culminate again. 

Louisiana now a star she sees, 
In Liberty's bright constellation lain, 

While her dowry has dwindled, by degrees, 
Into a mere paraphernalia of — fleas. 

LXXXII. 

Nor shall her brow again by it be decked. 

While time shall ride the waves of rolling years ; 
As well might she, O esperance ! expect 

To goad an alligator on with spurs. 
To Don Paez it forcibly occurs, 

Of Caymen she would have to ride a host, 
With snapping turtles hissing in her ears. 

Through an aceldama from coast to coast. 
Ere she an achievement so glorious could boast. 



DUAN 11. 77 

LXXXIII. 
Now Paez under the magnolia stands, 

The floral queen of the Southwestern grove ; 
Skirting the lowlands and the sterile sands, 

Forming bowers for dames and swains and love, 
And knights errant, who might with wild cats rove, 

And pour their trophies at their ladies' feet. 
Whilst perfumes showered on them from above 

By efflorescent boughs, and music sweet 
From the gay troubadour's soft pipe their ears doth greet. 

SONG. 

1. 

By those bright eyes that wildly glow 
Like sunbeams on the mountain snow ; 
Those lids that bathe in nectared dew. 
Those smiling cheeks of rosy hue ; 
By all the lover's soft alarms, 
I'm taken captive by thy charms. 

2. 
By those twin coral lips I swear, 
Those teeth as alabaster fair, 
Those raven curls that gently fall 
In graceful fringes round them all. 
By that fine form of beauty's mould 
Such love as mine shall ne'er grow cold. 

S. 
By that white neck which clusters crown. 
Those breasts that shame the cygnet's down, 
Those hands that with the lily vie, 
When bleached with dew-drops from the sky, 
By all the loveliness I woo, 
I love thee, and my love is true. 



78 DON PAEZ. 

LXXXIV. 

Now gentle sirs, by way of epilogue, — 

Should you refuse to plume the Muse's wing, 
Of her casket no more she'll disembogue. 

And would not that be a right handsome thing ? 
Do you expect for me to sing, and sing. 

And sing, and sing, and not receive a pin ? 
I vow to you I'll no more strike a string. 

Nor from my tuneful distaff will I spin 
Another thread, if I no pocket favor win. 

LXXXV. 

Agreed ! methinks I hear some coxcomb say, 

Whose skull is soft as an abortive egg ; 
In cockney phrase, " Down, wanton, down," I pray ; 

No faucet draws aught from an empty keg. 
Therefore, of thee, I nothing have to beg. 

No undertakings flourish without gold, 
And quid pro quo we all know is the leg 

On which the world hops. My suit may be cold. 
Then fare you well, sweet sirs, what I have told, I've told. 

LXXXVI. 

But should you further wish to roam with me. 

Then Kheder Khan you first must emulate. 
And the fair fields of Mexico we'll see. 

Where Superstition o'er her victims sate, 
Dispensmg the imperial laws of Fate ; 

And where the Incas — the Sun's children — ^trode ; 
The aged fabrics we will contemplate. 

Of priests and priestcraft the lang syne abode, 
While we rove through Micaotl, of the dead the road. 



aS) 



DUAN II. 79 

LXXXVII. 

We'll tread the land of volcanoes and and storms, 

Gold, silver, diamonds, mountains, earthquakes, war, 
And view the Andes, whose stupendous forms. 

With hoary snow-scalps, cleave the frozen air. 
Flooded with light by Cotopaxi's glare. 

Forth from the plain we'll see Jorullo swell. 
And stroll through gardens, groves, and vineyards fair. 

Oh ! of things wonderful the Muse will tell. 
If you but plume her pinions. Shall she say — Farewell ! 



■n 



^ 



NOTES TO DUAN I. 



STANZA L.XXXIV. 

" Saint Pierre ! how can thy battering-rams of fire," 8fc. — See 
*' Studies of Nature," page not recollected, where Saint Pierre likens 
the sunbeams to battering-rams of fire, pumping up the waters of the 
ocean in the torrid zone, while the two counter currents, sent down 
by the melting of the polar ices, from either pole, fill the vacuum 
thus produced, and restore the equilibrium. Now philosophers all 
agree, that it is impossible for the atoms composing the world to in- 
crease or diminish. It remains, therefore, for Saint Pierre to inform 
us how this water, so lifted up in the atmosphere, is disposed of. It 
cannot return into the ocean, it seems, for its place there is occupied 
by the currents from the poles. Where, then, shall it be at rest ? 
At rest all bodies must be somewhere. Would Saint Pierre have us 
believe that the sun swallows it ? 



STANZA LXXXV. 

" The gulf stream is the swift discharging spout,''' 8fc. — The most 
fashionable theory seems to be, that the Gulf Stream is caused by the 
trade winds : but this the author thinks entirely incorrect, inasmuch 
as the trade winds setting in from the east, and crossing it obliquely, 
are, about the Bahama islands, more in opposition to the Gulf Stream 
than otherwise ; neither do they prevail further north than the 28th 
degree of latitude ; while the Gulf Stream continues to near the 
Azores, where, in consequence of perhaps assuming the same tem- 
perature, it assimilates with the circumambient waters. He thinks, 
as the text intimates, that the Gulf Stream is nothing more nor less 
than a hurricane in the ocean, resting upon the same principle as tor- 



@ 



82 NOTES TO DUAN I. 

nadoes, hurricanes, &c,, in the atmosphere, and that, as an uniform 
cause must produce an uniform effect, the uniformity of this pheno- 
menon is owing, probably, to the waters within the torrid zone being, 
by the intense heat of an ever-vertical sun, kept in a state of con- 
tinual rarefaction. The author has, moreover, been informed by 
mariners, that thunder-storms are more frequent about the Gulf Stream 
than in any other part of the ocean, which has left him to infer an 
affinity between the waters of the Gulf Stream -Jad the electric fluid. 
That there is an affinity between the electric fluid and steel, and 
between steel and the magnet, is no longer questioned. Why then, 
may not the magnet exercise a correlative influence on the Gulf Stream, 
in attracting it towards the magnetic pole in the north, so far as the 
intervention of the American continent will admit of, and until it is 
divested of its electric particles, and consequently of its further sus- 
ceptibility of being attracted, by assuming the same temperature of 
the waters in the northern regions and assimilating with them. 

THE OCEAN LYRE. YerSC 5. 

" A pile of rocks precipitous we spy," Sfc. — It is matter of surprise 
that this cataract of the ocean, as it may justly be termed, known to 
mariners by the appellation of " Hole in the Wall," or " Hole in the 
Rock," should so far have eluded the attention of the curious as to be 
suffered to remain so long a nondescript. For, taken together with 
its delightful associations of scenery, the author conceives that it not 
only deserves to be classed with Nature's greatest curiosities, but that 
it merits a place among the most sublime and beautiful of her works. 
The " Hole in the Wall," is in the southwestern extremity of the 
island of Abaco, one of the Bahamas, in latitude, 25° 51' north, and 
77'' 10' west longitude from Greenwich. 



NOTES TO DUAN II 



STANZA LXXXVI. 



" Then Kheder Khan you first must emulate,^'' fyc. — Kheder Khan, 
D'Herbelot and Gibbon inform us, was a Turkish Sultan, around 
whose sofa four bags were placed, and as he listened to the song, he 
cast handfuls of gold and silver to the poets. 



STANZA LXXXVII. 

" Forth from the plain we'll see Jorullo swell" 8fc. — " In 1769, 
during an earthquake, a new mountain named Jorullo, rose from the 
centre of a large plain." It is 700 feet above the level of the plain. 
(Cumming's Geography.) 

" The Nicaraguan volcano, called Juruyo was only a small hill 
before the year 1760. In that year, however, on the 29th of Septem- 
ber, it began with furious explosions, ruining entirely the sugar work 
and the neighboring village of Guacana ; and from that time con- 
tinued to emit fire and burning rocks, in such quantities, that the 
erupted matters in six years, had formed themselves into three high 
mountains, nearly six miles in circumference." ( Winterbotham^s 
America.) The reader will mark the diversity between the two 
authors. Both of them, probably, possessed the faculty of seeing the 
mountain, as Sancho Panza saw Dulcinea del Toboso, by hearsay, and 

" Rumor is a pipe 
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures ; 
And of so easy and so plain a stop. 
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads. 
The still discordant wavering multitude. 
Can play upon it." 



INSCRIBED TO 



THE LADIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



=© 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE ALLEGHANIES AND THE KANAWHA. 



I . 

Jove and the giants erst a combat waged. 

When mountains flew, like bombs, about their heads ; 
Here, it should seem, the dreadful conflict raged, 

Till mother earth was shivered into shreds ; 
Where torrents, writhing on their stormy beds. 

Weep o'er the mighty havoc that ensued ; 
While o'er the fricassee disorder treads, 

With all its variegated forms endued ; — 
A world of contraries ! a deathlike solitude ! 



11. 

From fusion sprang cowfusion, when the earth. 
In huge landgulf streams furiously driven, 

Gave these twin brothers of the Cyclops birth ; 
Colossal waves cooled off in forms uneven. 



=© 



90 THE ALLEGHANIES AND THE KANAWHA. 

While bubbling through the azure vault of heaven, 
Seem cleft, as if by thunderbolt, in twain ; 

As if by angry counter-currents riven, 

Through their dark bowels gushing on amain, 

A rolling volcano ! a liquid hurricane !* 



An ocean of mountains ! of all degrees. 

Waves urge their volume through the continent. 
Crested with granite hoar, and tufts of trees. 

While smoking torrents sparkle through each vent ; 
Billows of mountains in confusion blent. 

As by tornadoes lifted up and hurled, 
Thundering tremendous, from the firmament, 

And by dame Nature, in mad phrensy, whirled 
Into fantastic shapes, the rubbish of a world ! 

IV. 

Mountains are tumbled in stupendous heaps — 

Wild, savage, rough, rude, craggy, rugged, bare ; — 
Mountains are crumbled ! thundering from the steeps, 

Fragments of rocks fall whizzing through the air, 
Sounding their peals from cliff to crag afar. 

Whilst the ravines repeat their echoings ; 
The wolf alarmed leaps howling from his lair ; 

The frightened eagle from his eyrie springs, 
And buzzards, crows and owls in concert ply their wings. 

* Saint Pierre has thought that the earth was once in a state of 
fusion, and from such a cause accounts for the irregularities of its sur- 
face. From these premises I conclude that the mountains must have 
been landgulf streams, cooled off, probably, by some JVorthwester 
while in great agitation. 



e= 



THE ALLEGHANIES AND THE KANAWHA. 91 



How awful 'tis to lean upon the brink 

Of the huge precipice, enthroned on high. 
Like Jove upon Olympus, whilst I shrink 

From the dark, drear chasm which doth yawning lie — 
A Phlegethon beneath me. — Earth and sky 

Seem shook together in misshapen piles — 
Making a footstool of the clouds that fly, 

Weeping, like Niobe, through the defiles, 
Almost shut out from heaven and daylight's cheerful smiles. 



Down headlong from such giddy heights I look 

Lost in amazement, petrified with wonder ! — 
Trees shrink to shrubs, Kanawha to a brook, 

And heaps, as if by earthquakes dashed asunder. 
Frown marshalled round each hollow forge of thunder ; 

While echo flies from caves, and dells, and clouds, 
In harsh discord rolling her measures under 

These dismal mansions, hung with feral shrouds. 
The fit abodes of demons, fiiends, and ghostly crowds. 

VII. 

Terribly grand, and horribly obscure — 

Dull Chaos seems to spread her curtains here ; — 
The vistas through deep glens and ravines pour 

Faint streams of light, which gleam and disappear 
Like meteors sparkling and flashing near, 

Then vanishing from the coquetted sight. 
Leaving all dark, lone, solitary, drear — 

Offuscated by brooding shades of night, [flight. 

Where savage vermin prowl, and nightbirds shape their 



92 THE ALLEGHANIES AND THE KANAWHA. 

VIII. 

Entombed in mountains, here the minstrel sits, 

With bleak grey rocks, crags, cliffs, and bluffs around, 
Beneath whose cloud-enveloped summits flits 

An Iris, blinking o'er the dark profound 
That yawns beneath him ; — scarce he hears the sound 

Of the vexed stream, in the abyss portrayed 
Upon its bed of torture — brightly crowned 

With bubbles dancing through this Stygian shade. 
Sweating and vaulting — a continuous cascade ! 

IX. 

Here Nature gambolled in her wildest freaks ; 

The shelving rocks seem leaning from the skies ; 
And frowning on the waterfall that breaks, 

And howls, and hisses 'gainst their feet, and flies 
In mists, the sweat of thousand agonies ! 

Scowling like fumes forth from Avernus sent, 
Far, far beneath the feet of him whose eyes 

Fall on the dark, dread fissure, torn and rent 
By Kanawha, murmuring through the horrid vent. 



With clouds for companions, on the verge 

Of toppling steeps, a mazy route I wind. 
Round towering peaks what time the angry surge. 

Which seems in earth's remotest depths destined 
To force its way, to one deep gulf consigned. 

Exhales dense vapors, which eddying, show 
Kanawha's meanders, with cliffs entwined. 

Low rumbling on with wild and rapid flow. 
Till it strikes a proud ledge and thunders down below. 



THE ALLEGHANIES AND THE KANAWHA. 93 

XI. 

Then forming a clear, limpid crystal sheet, 

Through knolls and knobs it glides along the vale, 
With mild, engaging suavity to meet 

" La Belle Riviere,"* with its romantic tale : 
Ease, elegance, and comeliness prevail, 

Where Kanawha and Ohio embrace ; 
The sturdy mountaineer doth here avail 

Himself of a smooth courtier's smiling face, 
To greet the lady stream all dignity and grace. 

* The river Ohio is, beyond all competition, the most beautiful in 
the universe, whether we consider it for its meandering course 
through immense forests ; its clean and elegant banks, its innumerable 
delightful situations for towns, villages and improved farms ; or for 
those many other advantages which truly entitle it to the name origi- 
nally given it by the French, of La Belle Riviere. — American Mu- 
seum for 1792. Journal of a Tour in Kentucky. 



TO OHIO 



Hail gentle Ohio ! hail beautiful stream, 
What else but the subject can equal the theme ! 
Hail, princess of rivers ! in purple arrayed,* 
Of tincture exquisite — of delicate shade. 



Roll, lovely Ohio ! thy fair form along. 
With murmurs as soft as the breathings of song ; 
Thy waters — a galaxy — gracefully slow, 
Through the bright constellation of Liberty flow. 



Glide on, smooth Ohio, as mild as the dove, 
Or the sigh that betrays the first heavings of love ; 
Or the breeze of the east which the spices perfume, 
Or the zephyr that kisses a garden in bloom. 

* It is a remarkable and curious fact, that the foliage of the trees 
on the margin of the Ohio, is of a deep and beautiful purple tinge, 
owing, probably, to the exhalations arising from the mineral sub- 
stances with which the waters of the river are known to be strongly 
impregnated. 



TO OHIO. 95 

IV. 



But echoes are neard through the vista of time, 
Discordant and shrill as the heralds of crime ; 
They tell of the bow in hostility strung ; 
They tell of the war-cry by savages sung. 



V. 



They speak of the massacres whereat the blood 
Runs cold as the drops in the depths of thy flood ; 
They speak of Du Quesne and of Braddock's defeat ; 
Of the scalping knife, St. Clair and Harmer's retreat. 



VI. 



The groans of the mother, the cries of the child ; 
The yells of the Indians all fearful and wild ; 
The sorrows of maids in captivity led. 
The blood on thy margins with tomahawks shed. 



They blazon each bloody and chivalrous fray. 
Where Lewis and Forbes rolled the war clouds away ; 
And Columbia's escutcheon beamed in the sun, 
Reflecting new stars for the victories won. 



Yet thy waves are now free as the crystalline drop 
That hangs from the pine on the bleak mountain top ; 
From the deep crimson glow which corrupted their flow, 
When bodies lay food for the raven and crow. 



^ 



96 TO OHIO. 

IX. 

Nor more the fierce war-whoop disturbs thy repose, 
On thee towns and cities spring forth as the rose ; 
At rest are the arrow and battle axe lain, 
And the smoke of the Calumet curls o'er the plain. 

X. 

Flow on, smooth Ohio ! with pacific tide ; — 
On thy bosom boats, barges, and swift steamers ride 
To the Mississippi, and wrapped in his shroud, 
Be borne to the ocean in a thunder cloud ! 



=@ 



THE HIEROGLYPHICAL ROCK. 



Upon the north fork of the river Rivanna, 

A rock lies whose base by the current is swept ; 

Whereon, it appears in a singular manner, 

A record of years that are gone hath been kept. 



II. 



Here mystical footprints engraved in the stone, 
Some deed of the olden time seem to betoken ; 

Ere the genius of civilization was known, 

And the hearts of the sons of the desert were broken. 



III. 



Did chisel or stylus by Science directed, 

Its skill thus dispense to the wilderness wild ? 

Or shall we infer that the red man depicted 
These vestiges of some unfortunate child. 



IV. 



That strolled from the wigwam unseen and alone, 
And slipped from the rock disappearing for ever ? 

While the valley echoed the sorrowful moan 

Of its mother for ties which death did then dissever. 



98 THE HIEROGLYPHICAL ROCK. 



Does sorrow alone wring the civilized heart ? 

Oh, no ! it is found in the haunts of the savage ; 
For there, too, the bonds of affection must part, 

And death, of her infant the rude mother ravage. 



VI. 

Spring the warmest emotions from science and fashion ? 

Not so — in the bosom of Nature they breathe ; 
Here sympathy sheds the soft tear of compassion, 

As we pluck from the desert the handsomest wreath. 



VII. 

Oh ! love was yet never a mere thing of art ; 

Of hearts uncorrupted it is the quintessence ; 
And 'twas such that, perhaps, on this spot did impart. 

In the midst of the wild woods its own effervescence. 



VIII. 

Flow on sweetest current of pure native feeling, 
To such simple heavings my heart shall respond ; 

Not the gloss of all art affectation revealing, 
Of smiling hypocrisy shall make me fond. 



IX. 

Or were these the emblems of future oppression, 
When "Indian" before the civilizing swords. 

To the climes where the waters alone hold possession, 
Should fly to seek refuge from his conquering lords. 



@- 



THE HIEROGLYPHICAL ROCK. 



Plunged into the depths of the wide western ocean, 
Of the continent being pushed from the brink; 

The victim of interest, pride and commotion, 
Neath waves of oblivion ever to sink, 

XI. 

While the lands of his fathers present other scenes, 
And all things appear in a diverse portraiture ; 

Where fashion transforms men to moving machines. 
And false science blotches the fair face of Nature. 



99 



THE MEADOWS OF DAN. 



Oh, beauty ! Oh, loveliness ! here let me woo, 
As their charms rise before me in pleasing review, 
The meadows of Dan, habitations of wealth, 
Of elegance, comfort, refinement, and health. 



The meadows of Dan ! how delightful the theme. 
And the river that bathes them, — a beautiful stream ! 
O Greece ! when compared with this romantic vale. 
The graces of Temp6 must sink in the scale. 

III. 

Ah ! sweet are the smiles of the friends whom we love. 
And thrilling the accents that fall from above, 
From angelic harps, on the fancy of man. 
But what can vie with the enchantments of Dan ! 

IV. 

On thy fair plains a subject the bard shall pursue, 
In the annals of song interesting and new ; 
Indulge his wild fancy in rapturous glow. 
On thy waters as onward they gleefully flow. 



e= 



& 



THE MEADOWS OF DAN. 101 

V. 



Yes, yes, inspiration from thee he'll imbibe, 

Thy own fascinations with truth to describe ; 

With the noble mansions that look on thy tide, 

And the lawns that surround them in ever-green pride. 



VI. 



Where Perkins's ferry, erst hallowed by Greene 
And his band of patriots, adds to the scene, 
While forward they marched at their country's war-cry. 
Till the beacon of Liberty beamed in her sky. 



VII. 



Near the banks of the Dan in retirement and ease, 
The man who is formed to be pleased and to please ; 
With one choice partaking of his hopes and fears. 
May render to heaven all comforts and cares. 



VIII. 



Here, here safe at anchor, untouched he may lie, 
By the tempests of passion that rage wild and high 
On the ocean of life, with a conscience and soul 
As calm as the waves which through these valleys roll. 



IX. 



With books, friends, and family here he may live, 
Independent of all that this vain world can give ; 
In virtue's own dignity, without a sigh 
For the world or its follies, and happily die. 



THE BOILING SPRINGS, S. C. 



When on days that have vanished remembrance shall cast 
A ray, like a spark through the shadows of night ; 

Then shall I reflect on the days that were passed 
In silent obscurity, rural delight. 

CHORUS. * 

While the turtle-dove coos and the woodpecker taps, 
His pinions the owl o'er the pine branches flaps ; 
The whip-poor-will clucks, and the mocking-bird sings, 
In the pine-shaded valley of the Boiling Springs. 

II. 

In vain may we wander contentment to find, — 
Contentment alone from true wisdom can flow, 

And wisdom exists in a well-improved mind 
Or else she resides not with mortals below. 

CHORUS. 

While the turtle-dove coos, &c. 
III. 

The progress of science is silent and slow, 
And pensive and gloomy her vot'ries appear, 



lb 



THE BOILING SPRINGS. 103 

Yet her blossoms do brightest in solitude glow, 

And fresh are her laurels throughout the whole year. 

CHORUS. 

While the turtle-dove coos, &c. 

IV. 

Around my pale brow should she vouchsafe to twine, 
Those chaplets the taper alone can attain, 

Then the rose on my cheeks I'll with pleasure resign. 
And rejoice that my lamp has not wooed her in vain. 

CHORUS. 

While the turtle-dove coos, &c. 

V. 

When Phoebus beneath the horizon has gone. 
And in the grey twilight still linger his beams ; 

Then forth o'er the landscape I'll wander alone, 
And Nature will woo on the banks of the streams. 

CHORUS. 

While the turtle-dove coos, &c. 

VI. 

Away from the tumults of life then I'll fly, 
And, Solitude ! into thy shades will retire 

Awhile, where the zephyr shall glide sweetly by, 
And my song in his bosom shall softly expire. 

CHORUS. 

While the turtle-dove coos, &;c. 



&= 



@, 



THE TRINITY. 



[" The number, variety, and greatness of the miracles 'OTOught for the confirmation 
of the doctrine delivered by Jesus Christ, carr^' with them such strong marks of an 
extraordinary divine power, that the truth of his mission will stand firm and unques- 
tionable, till any one rising up in opposition to him, shall do greater miracles than he 
and his apostles did. For anything less will not be of weight to turn the scales in 
the opinion of any one, whether of an inferior or more exalted understanding. This 
is one of those palpable truths and trials of which all mankind are judges, and there 
needs no assistance of learning, no deep thought, to come to a certainty in it. Such 
care has God taken that no pretended revelation should stand in competition with 
what is truly divine, that we need but open our eyes to see, and be sure which came 
from him. The marks of his overruling power accompany it ; and, therefore, to this 
day we find, that wherever the Gospel comes, it prevails to the beating down the 
strongholds of Satan, and the dislodging the prince of the power of darkness, driving 
him away with all his lying wonders ; which is a standing miracle, carrying with it 
the testimony of superiority."] — Locke, vol. iii., p. 434 : Lond., 1759, 4to. 



Of eld Aristotle emitted a light, 
Like the spark of the firefly shrouded in night ; 
The world by the concourse of atoms he built, 
And gave it no Judge to preside over guilt. 



Come, Christians \ we'll follow our three-spangled star. 
The banners of Peace we will wave in the air ; 
The way we'll mount upwards which thousands have trod, 
And unite in the chorus of one triune Grod. 



=© 



THE TRINITY. 105 



On Time's troubled ocean this meteor rolled, 
While the light of the Logos did Plato unfold ; 
Like two hostile beacons long these doctrines stood, 
And the Ark of Redemption was left to the flood. 

CHORUS. 

Come, Christians ! we'll follow, &c. 



III. 

Mankind left thus desolate wanted a guide ; — 
An umpire was sent the contest to decide ; 
'Mid sceptical conflicts and dreadful commotion, 
A pillar of light beamed athwart this wild ocean. 

CHORUS. 

Come, Christians ! we'll follow, &c. 



IV. 

Like cataracts of lightning its principles flew — 
Like firebolts of thunder its precepts it threw ; 
Like the billows of ocean by hurricanes driven. 
They swept o'er the earth and concentered in heaven ! 

CHORUS. 

Come, Christians ! we'll follow, &c. 



This figure beamed forth on the future and past ; 
Through the earth's wide extent were its scintillsB cast ; 



106 THE TRINITY. 

Before it, did proud Infidelity wane, 

And shrunk from its face ne'er to flourish again. 

CHORUS. 

Come, Christians ! we'll follow, &c. 



VI. 

Suns, moons, stars, and comets appeared on its shield, 
And much that the prophets of old had revealed ; 
On its front stood the Father, on its right the Son — 
On its left was the Holy Ghost, all three in One ! 

CHORUS. 

Come, Christians ! we'll follow, &;c. 



Faith was its foundation, not the human mind, 

And why ? — Must I tell thee ? — Man's reason is blind ! 

Mysterious is godliness ! — this is the cause, 

God governs the universe by Ms own laws ! 

CHORUS. 

Come, Christians ! we'll follow, «fec. 



Yet many a reprobate lived in those days, 
Too blind to perceive or acknowledge its blaze ; 
His ignis fatuus, too proud to disclaim. 
And to bask in the Gospel's meridian flame, 

CHORUS. 

Come, Christians! we'll follow, &c. 



THE TRINITY. 107 

IX. 

And many a dart was still hurled at its back, 
Propelled by some conscience, perhaps, on the rack, 
While a deathbed 's the touchstone that ever doth show 
The triumphs of faith or the writhings of woe. 

CHORUS. 

Come, Christians ! we'll follow, &c. 



^ 



VISION OP RESURRECTION. 



" And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, lifted up his 
hand to heaven, 

" And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the 
things that therein are, and the earth and the things that therein are, and the sea 
and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." — Rev.x.,5, 6. 

" And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and death and hell delivered 
up the dead which were in them ; and they were judged every man according to 
his works." — Jbid. xx., 13. 



I SAW a sight most horrible. — At the soul-chilling sight, 
All nature shook with coward fear and shuddered with af- 
fright ; 
I saw the jarring elements like flashing powder burn, 
And the great Orrery in flaming revolutions turn. 

II. 

I saw the howling ocean sulphureous billows roll, 

The sun forsake his course, and plough the skies from pole 

to pole, 
The crumbling ships desert their crews — while rang time's 

thund'ring dirge. 
Which sank — no more on earth to rise — beneath the boiling 

surge. 



VISION OF RESURRECTION. 109 

III. 

I saw the moon weep tears of blood, earth like a cradle rock, 
The thunder-stricken universe confessed the dreadful shock ; 
The golden chain connecting worlds, link after link was 

snapped. 
And in one vivid lightning-sheet creation all was wrapped. 

XI. 

I saw the deep infernal gulf rolled in a pitchy shroud, 

Its fumes in scowling columns rise, — I heard the howlings 

loud 
Of fiends which in dire concert did their horrid measures 

troll : 
Ah me ! can I forget the sight ? The vision froze my soul ! 



I saw a fiery mountain in a pyramid arise ; 

Its base was this poor waning earth, — its summit pierced the 

skies, 
Where sat the awful Judge, surrounded by a golden zone. 
And cherubim and seraphim were fluttering round the throne. 

VI. 

I saw the great Jehovah tread the winepress of his ire. 
And pour the vials of his wrath — a hurricane of fire ! 
I saw the angels sweep, in symphony, the golden lyre. 
Pronouncing Nature's requiem around her feral pyre. 

VII. 

I saw a mighty multitude, too numerous to name. 
The creatures of mortality, all floating in the flame ; 



no VISION OF RESURRECTION. 

I heard their groans, cries, shrieks, and wails vibrating in 

the air. 
The deflagrable world a scene of terror and despair ! 

VIII. 

I saw the nations gathering at the Almighty's nod. 

Pressed onward by the waves of flame up to the bar of God ; 

I heard the great archangel's trump like mingled thunders 

roar, 
Proclaiming to the sons of men that time should be no more ! 



d= 



^ 



THE TIDE OF TIME 



I. 

The tide of time rolls on ! rolls on ! 

Like billows of a troubled sea ; 
And many a bark that rode thereon 

Has anchored in eternity. 

II. 

The tide of time rolls on ! rolls on ! 

Kingdoms and states liave passed away; 
Which giddy monarchs lost and won, 

By blood whose price they ne'er could pay. 

III. 

The tide of time rolls on ! rolls on ! 

And where are they of yesterday ? 
The crumbling clod now rests upon 

Those busy pageants of a day. 

IV. 

The tide of time rolls on ! rolls on ! 

To-morrow who shall fill their place ? 
In cradles rocked, perhaps unborn, 

Are the germs of that future race. 



VALERIA 



[" Valeria was the daughter of Diocletian emperor of Rome. She was a lady of the 
most exquisite beauty, and married the emperor Galerius. Galerius dying, left her 
a widow, and in less than a month after his death, her hand was solicited in 
marriage by Maximin the tyrant, who divorced his wife with that intention. 
Valeria rejected his offer with scorn and indignation, suggesting ' That decency, at 
least, must forbid her to listen to his addresses, at a time when the ashes of her 
husband and his benefactor were still warm.' For which she and her mother were 
exiled to the deserts of S^Tia, and having roamed about as outlaws, for a considera- 
ble time, they were at length assassinated at Thessalonia, by the hand of Licinius." — 
Gibbon.] 



Ah, child of misfortune ! the victim of Avoe, 
As pure and as fair as the Spitzbergen snow ; 
As sweet as the rose and as fresh as the morn, 
Exposed to a tyrant's displeasure and scorn. 

II. 

Shun, shun the oppressor, disdain his request, 
More pity resides in the Arab's rude breast; 
The hordes of the desert, far kinder than he, 
Will tenderly melt into mercy for thee. 



@= 



VALERIA. 113 



III. 



Haste, haste to the wilds, with the speed of the hind ; 
Nor hope in a tyrant's rude bosom to find 
A shadow of anything noble or good, — 
But rapine and cruelty bathing in blood. 



Oppression awaits thee, disgrace will be thine. 
At which it were fruitless to weep and repine ; 
The fairest of lilies when tinctured with stain. 
Not the dew drops of heaven can whiten again. 



Then haste to the desert, though death you should meet, 
And welter in blood at the ruffian's feet, 
'Tis honor that calls you, and you must obey ; 
Haste, haste to the desert, nor longer delay. 



@?= 



DEATH OF LADY WALLACE. 



" A momentary strength darted from the heart of Lady Wallace to her voice. ' I 
kneel to heaven alone ! and may it ever preserve my Wallace from the fangs of 
Edward and his tyrants !' 

" ' Blasphemous wretch,' cried Heselrigge, and at that moment he plunged his 
sword in her defenceless breast." — Scottish Chiefs. 



Hurls Heaven a shaft more deadly than the rest ? 

That shaft shall rive the coward miscreant's head, 
Who dares defenceless innocence molest, 

And on the tenderest ties of nature tread. 



Roars hell with floods more wasting than the rest ? 

Deep in those floods shall the doomed culprit wade, 
Who ploughs with ruflian hand fair virtue's breast. 

And shakes the life drops from his crimson blade. 

III. 

Is there a crime at which infernals blush ? 

The crime, inhuman Heselrigge, is thine ; 
Could marble cheeks of shame impart a blush, 

Confusion deep were traced in every line. 



@r 



DEATH OF LADY WALLACE. 



115 



IV. 



'Tis heaven's own wrong, and vengeance it shall meet ; 

Angels in judgment o'er the wretch shall stand ; 
In heaven or earth no torment were complete, — 

Then hell alone remains to fix the brand. 



0= 



BEAUTY, SCIENCE, AND LOVE 



Through life 'tis Beauty charms our lonely way, 
And smoothes the rugged path of toil and care ; 

'Tis Beauty casts the gently pleasing ray, 

That warms the heart endued with love sincere. 



II. 



But Beauty, like earth's fairest flowers, will fade, 
And shed her sweetest incense on the air ; 

Then in the mind should Beauty be portrayed, 
'Tis there alone that she is truly fair. 



III. 



Then, like the sun, when shades of death shall close, 
Like evening mists around the silent tomb, 

Bright retrospective rays she shall disclose 

Unto the memory — a rich perfume ! - 



IV. 



Beauty and Science crowned with virtuous Love, 
Make smoothe the way to human happiness. 

Whose strength the storms of fortune only prove. 
But cannot make their lasting pleasures less. 



© 



TO LELIA 



Over this signature a panegyric on Don Paez appeared in the public prints, wherein 
the author was compared to Lord Byron. 



The task is pleasant, minstrel maid, 
To greet a warbler in the shade, 
And to confess the conflict sweet. 
Of blushes when they softly meet. 



Bland is the breeze that fans the vale, 
And whispers Philomela's tale. 
As in the shade she sits and sings, 
And sends abroad her echoings. 

III. 

Though I were as the comet bright, 
The moon that lights the dusky night, 
The sun that blazes through the day, 
Beauty would bear the palm away. 



118 TO LELIA. 

IV. 

Though I have heard the ocean roar, 
And breakers thunder on the shore, 
And wandered many a weary mile, 
All that I ask is woman's smile. 



Though I have watched the creaking mast, 
While on the angry billows cast, 
The sport of the loud howling blast. 
When Hope and Heaven alone were fast, 



VI. 

And torrents from the clouds were sent, 

As from a bursting firmament, 

And all was shrouded in despair. 

Yet woman smiled, and peace was there. 



But shall I rival Byron's fame. 
And give the world so great a name ? 
Shall our numbers become allied. 
And roll in thunders side by side ? 



Oh, lady, no ! forbear, forbear. 
The comet dwindles to a star ; 
Or else, a star with feeble rays. 
Is made to show a comet's blaze. 



TO LELIA. 119 



IX. 



Thy blushes, lady ! do a tale impart, — ^ 
Blushes and blossoms of a tender heart ; 
Were Flora's smiling train before me set, 
I'd choose the modest blushing violet. 



And will the coy songstress no longer stay ? 
But one short song, and then away, away ! 
Then for an echo must my bosom swell, 
Thanks, gentle echo. Wilt thou go ? Farewell. 



THE SCOTTSVILLE SERENADE 



Bland is the breeze, our boat is light, 

The stars through mists are peeping ; 
Around us is the silent night, 
In beauty calmly sleeping, 
O when the heart 's oppressed with love of Beauty's gentle 

daughters. 
There 's nothing soothes the saddened soul like music on the 
waters. 

II. 

The foam curls o'er the ruffled tide, 

In silver circles dancing ; 
Our skiff doth like a swallow glide, 
While merrily advancing. 
O, when the heart 's oppressed with love of Beauty's gentle 

daughters, 
There 's nothing soothes the saddened soul like music on the 
waters. 

III. 
The violins, the flutes and drum, 

Discourse in sweet vibrations ; 
While up Fluvanna's stream they come, 

With evening salutations. 



# 



THE SCOTTSVILLE SERENADE. 121 

O, when the heart 's oppressed with love of Beauty's gentle 

daughters, 
There 's nothing soothes the saddened soul like music on the 

M''aters. 

IV. 

The ambling breezes waft the sounds, 

In thrilling concert pealing ; 
From hill to cliff o'er the low grounds, 
Where James is softly stealing. 
O, when the heart 's oppressed with love of Beauty's gentle 

daughters, 
There 's nothing soothes the saddened soul like music on the 
waters. 

V. 

When Music, Love and Poesy, 
Are wedded in communion ; 
The Muses nine, the Graces three, 
Are happily in union. 
O, when the heart 's oppressed with love of Beauty's gentle 

daughters, 
There 's nothing soothes the saddened soul like music on the 
waters. 

VI. 

Let softest airs from Eden's bowers, 

Breathed in angelic numbers. 
Fall softly on Eve's fairest flowers, 
While wrapped in pleasant slumbers. 
O, when the heart 's oppressed with love of Beauty's gentle 

daughters. 
There 's nothing soothes the saddened soul like music on the 
waters. 



122 THE SCOTTSVILLE SERENADE. 

VII. 

Let evening dews in flowers descend, 
Wreathed by the hands of graces ; 
Let sweet perfumes and music blend, 
With bright and smiling faces. 
O, when the heart 's oppressed with love of Beauty's gentle 

daughters, 
There 's nothing soothes the saddened soul like music on the 
waters. 



O, when the heart's tides high and strong, 

Gush forth in wild commotion ; 
The smiles of beauty with sweet song, 
Can lull the troubled ocean. 
O, when the heart 's oppressed with love of Beauty's gentle 

daughters, 
There 's nothing soothes the saddened soul like music on the 
waters. 



=© 



LOVE CHANT OF CHILI. 



O, THAT I could borrow the nightingale's strain, 

Then would I in soul-melting measures complain ; 

And lull the conflicting emotions to rest, 

That rankle and fester like thorns in my breast ; — 

O could I assume the meek turtle-dove's voice, 

A soft roundelay to the maid of my choice 

In notes I would whisper so soft and so smooth, 

And the ear of her beauty so charmingly soothe. 

That the butterfly fanning away the perfume, 

In gossamer found on the eglantine's bloom. 

With its soft silken wings, were alone emblematic, 

Of warblings so gentle, so tender, so Attic. 

Sweet nymph of the Maypo ! bright beam of the sun ! 

Gem of adoration ! Oh, wilt thou be won ? 

Retiring and coy, like a sylph of the fountains ; 

Or floweret that blows in the shade of the mountains, 

That droops with the weight of its own loveliness, 

And shrinks from the light zephyr's softest caress. 

Shall I gaze, and sigh, and remain taciturn. 

Despite of the flames which in my bosom burn, 

So hopeless, so doubtful, so tinctured with fear. 

So shrinking and sensitive when thou art near, 



124 LOVE CHANT OF CHILL 

Maid of my affections ! mild, modest, and fair, 

And soft as the songs of the seraphim are ; 

Resistless in love as the flash from the cloud. 

Bursting from the foldings of its sullen shroud, 

With eyes dark and sparkling, each looking a soul. 

And flashing love's lightnings as wildly they roll, 

Vouchsafe one compassionate glance to impart. 

And behold thy loved image stamped deep in my heart. 

West Indian gardens exhaling perfume. 

Unfolding the beauties of Eden in bloom. 

Give not such delight as the flash of thine eye, 

Exceeded by naught that emblazons the sky : 

Sustained by such charms as I only extol, ^ 

The charms that bespeak elevation of soul, > 

And expansion of mind above vulgar control. ) 

Melodious voices of Orient maids. 

Composing a chorus of soft serenades ; 

Cannot be compared with the vestal we find, 

Highly accomplished in person and mind ; 

Possessed with the graces of Nature and Art ; — 

Endued with a tender and sensitive heart, 

By the bright smiles evolving thy heart's effervescence, 

The soft crimson glow of thy cheek's efflorescence ; 

Thy clustering ringlets so glossy and fair ; 

Thy lips sweetly pouting ; — a coralline pair ! 

My fondest remembrance its halo shall throw, 

Around thy loved person its unfading glow. 



TO WOMAN. 



Mild as the gentle breeze with pinions light, 

That whispers in the drowsy ear of night ; 

Soft as the fabled syrens' roundelay, 

Or melody that charms the groves in May ; 

Enchanting as the pale moon's silvery sheen. 

Scattering brilliants o'er an ocean scene ; 

As tender as the turtle's low, meek note, 

Wherein affection's sweetest vespers float ; 

Are the bland smiles which female grace bestows, 

On man's rough heart, and lulls it to repose ; 

O, woman ! daughter of all loveliness ! 

Sweet soother in the hours of dark distress ; 

Who pours the balm into the troubled mind, 

Like oil upon the waters ; — while refined 

Emotions with returning joys arise. 

And lift the soul in rapture to the skies. 

To thee the muse her humble strains shall raise ; — 

To thee shall flow the incense of her praise:. 



Q= 



THE BOUQUET. 

(an acrostic.) 



A BRIGHT tinted garland with pleasant perfume, 

B lushes like youth with fresh beauty in bloom, — 

O h ! the world were a lone cheerless desert to me, 

U nblessed with the flowers of love should it be ; 

Q uerulous man would soon mope in despair, 

U ncherished by love and the smiles of the fair ; — 

E nchantment adorns with its beautiful veil, 

T he bowers where smiles and sweet posies prevail 

S weet nosegay ! smile on in thy pure loveliness ; — 
W e snuff thy sweet odors, we gaze, we caress, 
E re thy freshness dissolves and is wasted in air ; 
E ach breeze that salutes thee thy bloom doth impair, 
T ill beauty and fragrance they no longer bear. 

A 11 external charms pass away soon and fast, 

S weet ladies observe, ere your spring time be passed. 

T he bloom on your cheeks only tells you, forsooth, \ 
H ow swiftly time flies and how soon passes youth; > 
E ven sooner than we oft perceive the sad truth. ) 



@= 



THE BOUQUET. 127 

S oft flowers of Spring in sweet odors may vie, 
M uch beauty develope, then wither and die ; — 
I f thus with the heart, oh, how quick were its cure ! J 
L ong after that withers it still must endure, v 

E ntombed in its griefs, tasting pleasure no more. ) 

O h ! the feelings that fester and rush to the heart, 
F ierce lightnings resemble, — in silence they dart ! 

L et unmeaning wit, joined with shallow pretence, 
O wn no sensibility. — Intelligence 
V iews love as the principle strongest on earth, 
E xcelled by no other yet called into birth. 



^ 



42) 



WEDDED. 



By earth ?n the temple of Nature, 
An Oak and a Persimmon of the same stature ; 
Engendered together, they've grown in communion, 
And 'tempest and time have respected the union f 
Now Madam Persimmon is gentle and kind, 
Sir Oak to uxoriousness seemeth inclined ; 
Remark liow they cling, cleave, cohere, and embrace, 
With tenderness, sympathy, softness and grace. 
May no hostile axe be applied to their roots. 
To blight their foliage^ or canker their fruits ; 
And may they survive food and shelter to yield. 
To birds of the air and to beasts of the field ; 
Without interruption, then, should we pass by. 
If they are contented indeed so am I. 
Let their saps then commingle in congenial flow. 
Where saps unite readily hearts must you know. 






IMPROMPTU 

RETURNED TO A LADY WHO SENT THE AUTHOR A CRAB APPLE. 



The favor conferred upon me 
Is hereby acknowledged, Miss B. 
So Adam the fruit did receive, 
From the lily white hand of Eve ; 
But had her's been bitter as this, 
Man never had fallen from bliss. 
I hope no fond beau ever sips 
Such nectar as this from thy lips ; 
And with this tliou dost not compare 
At heart, while so outwardly fair ; 
Like fruit is reported to be 
Upon the banks of the Dead Sea. 



=@ 



NIAGARA 



Dame Nature's fiercest desperadoes, — 

Storms, billows, waterspouts, tornadoes,- 

And other wild phenomena, 

Are mingled at Niagara ; 

In dreadful conflict on its height, 

To take their earth-convulsing flight, 

At one tremendous downward leap. 

That plunges them into the deep 

Abyss, that yawns beneath the steep 

Where first they bubble, boil, and swell 

In all the agonies of hell, 

Then, transformed into a huge whirl 

Of liquid thunder, down they hurl 

Their fretful, fearful, foaming forms, 

In a convulsive fit of storms. 

Upon a bed of earthquakes, where. 

Split, smashed, and shivered into air, 

They rise and form a misty sea, 

That spreads into infinity. 

While a wide volcano of sound, . 

Imparts its bellowings around ; 

And with a deep eruptive quake. 

Bids earth to her foundations shake ; 



^. 



NIAGARA. 131 

The planets tremble in the skies, 

As the reverberations rise ; / 

Here Discord's furies never sleep, 

And heaven's bright orbs seem to weep 

The restless fluids back again, 

In an incessant fall of rain, 

Which have been flashed into their faces, 

By this mad chief of hellish places. 

While of God's covenant, the Bow, 

With its soft particolored glow, 

Is seen in an eternal stride 

O'er the infernal gulf, to chide 

It seems, its wild and wayward freaks ; 

While to creation it bespeaks 

No dread of mischief from such play, 

Since waters erst have had their day, 

And hence are rolled in floods away, 

To ocean their tribute to pay. 



THE MAID OF ROANOKE 



Her eyes are as soft as the dew-drops of morn, 
Her footsteps as nimble as those of the fawn ; 
She speaks, and sweet musical strains are awoke, 
Like sighs of a windlute upon the Roanoke. 

The bonny Roanoke, the placid Roanoke, 
The beautiful river, the gentle Roanoke. 

II. 

With aspect as mild as a September moon. 
Her smiles are as soft as the twilight of June ; 
Her cheeks all the charms of expression evoke, ^ 
Like waters that murmur along the Roanoke. 

III. 

With heart light as footstep in those hoary shades 
Of sycamores, locusts, oaks, dim colonnades. 
And corridors, glided the sylph in her cloak. 
Like some sprite of romance upon the Roanoke, 



THE MAID OF ROANOKE. 133 

IV. 



That frequents old castles of baronial times, 
Awaiting her kindred from neighboring climes, 
There, all in a family tryst to convoke. 
Like wood-nymphs, a gentle band, on the Roanoke. 



V. 



Such was the young scion I saw in those halls, 

With ceilings so lofty, and wainscoted walls, 

Of the noble genealogical oak. 

That stood in " The Grove" near the banks of Roanoke. 



VI. 



An emblem becoming the ancestral grace. 
That kindled, with blushes, the oppressor's face, 
When of marks and back-wounds in his presence she spoke, 
A Runny mede baroness on the Roanoke ! 



The loveliest flower of that Halifax, 
Which Cornwallis did with his myrmidons tax. 
When marching to York where he held, without joke, 
A language diverse from that used on Roanoke. 



But fair Spartan grandchild, while Washingtons wield 
The broadsword in triumph on war's purple field. 
Thy beauty both heroes and bards shall invoke, 
Who muse or bivouac upon the Roanoke. 



=© 



134 THE MAID OF ROANOKE. 

IX. 

As Tarleton's back felt in the haste of his flight, 
That Washington marked well, if he could not write ; 
The heart must confess that is wounded and broke, 
The force of the dart from the maid of Roanoke. 



Like a deer that is struck, I fly bleeding away, 
One shaft is sufficient, no longer I stay ! 
The steam that conveys me in thunder and smoke. 
Exceeds not the heart-fever caught on Roanoke. 

XI. 

She pierces my mind like a bright solar beam, 

She dwells in my soul like a beautiful dream ; 

As the nightingale's song shames the raven's hoarse croak, 

So passeth all others, the maid of Roanoke. 

XII. 

The harps of the houris with tones sweet and clear, 
And songs of the syrens might transport my ear. 
Yet the deep impression they could not revoke, 
On memory left by the maid of Roanoke. 



XIII. 

In her all the charms of the Graces are ripe, 
My fancy she grasps with an incubus' gripe ; 
My heart in flood of perfumes should you soak, 
You could not wash from it, the maid of Roanoke. 



THE MAID OF ROANOKE. 135 

XIV. 



O love is most cruel, and keen is the smart ! 
A touch of blood- lightning that shivers the heart ! 
As each swain may learn who shall steer his peroque, 
Too close to the Circe who haunts the Roanoke. 



XV. 

Though thoughts should assemble, like locusts in crowds, 
Though words should pour from me like rain from the 

clouds, 
Yet would her dear presence my faculties choke, 
So great is my love for the maid of Roanoke. 

^ XVI. 

If knowledge gives power as Bacon hath said, 
And beauty gives more, why then puzzle the head, 
By shutting so long in scholastical poke. 
Such powerful beauty as hers of Roanoke ? 

XVII. 

Unless to prevent the keen glance of her eyes. 

From scorching like lightning fresh struck from the skies, 

And thus a love-storm in the soul to provoke. 

So much to be feared from the maid of Roanoke. 

XVIII. 

But now 'tis too late, my poor heart is consumed, 
The blossom is withered which so freshly bloomed ; 
Then would I advise to confine in a yoke^ 
To keep from more mischief the maid of Roanoke, 



136 THE MAID OF ROANOKE 

XIX. 

Away with courts, writs, declarations, and pleas ; 
With sheriffs, clerks, judges, and all such as these j 
What care I for Bacon, Hale, Blackstone, or Coke, 
Should they not adjudge me the maid of Roanoke. 

XX. 

Ye Whigs, Democrats, and Conservatives all. 
Begone with your jargon and partisan brawl ', 
Away with Clay, Webster, and Dallas, and Polk, 
No office I seek but from her of Roanoke. 

XXI. 

To Norfolk I'll hie, choose a mariner's life. 
And walk the blue waters all foaming with strife ; 
And when waves assail us with hurricane stroke, 
I'll think on each billow that flows from Roanoke. 
The bonny Roanoke, the placid Roanoke, 
The beautiful river, the gentle Roanoke. 



=d 



© 



THE RENCONTRE, 

A TALE OF VENEZUELA. 



When Freedom rolled her battle car. 
Along the plains of Bogota ; 
And crimson battle's thunders pealed, 
O'er hill and dale, and wood and field ; 
And war's red lightnings lit the sky. 
Like Cotopaxi flaming high. 
From patriotic fires that glow. 
Like Pichinca — a volcano ! 
And the hoarse shout of victory. 
Was Bolivar and Libertie ! 
Paez repaired to join the fray, 
Across the wide aceldama. 
Soon he a royal chieftain met, 
Encased for combat in corselet ; — 
He railed not like a gasconade 
Whose mouth contains his battle blade — 
Which, like a mattock, hoe or spade, 
Scoops out the grave where honor 's laid. 
The sabre from his belt he drew — 
Out from his lips the curses flew ; 



138 THE RENCONTRE. 

Together played the oaths and brand, 
Like puppets in a juggler's hand. 
No tigress springing from her lair, 
With gnashing teeth, inverted hair — 
Dilating eyes of fiery glare 
And fangs extended, while the air 
Echoes the wailings of her young, 
E'er from her eyes such flashes flung. 
As from Paez's wildly darted, 
Like sparks from falling stars imparted. 
Athwart that brow with fury knitted, 
A thousand wild emotions flitted ; 
Revenge ! revenge ! the fiend of strife. 
Was then the cry — yes — " To the knife !" 
The lightnings danced upon his eye, 
As meteors upon the sky ; — 
Out, out, the forked fury flashed, 
Out, out, the vivid venom dashed. 
Pale — ghastly pale — convulsed with fear, 
The victim shook — the bolt was near ; — 
Up flew the shaft — down fell the blow ; 
A shriek escaped the sinking foe. 
Swift to his heart the blade was sent. 
Out gushed the life-stream at the vent. 



AMERICAN WAR SONG 



O YE who are by kings oppressed, 
A promised land lies in the West, 
An asylum to the distressed, 
The home of chivalrie ! 

II. 

Approach ! we tender heart and hand ; — 
We, by our blood-sealed Charter stand 
Defenders of the Western land, 

'Gainst Eastern tyrannie. 

•4 

III. 

Before our arms all despots fly. 
Our stars and stripes wave proud and high, 
While loud resounds the battle cry 
Of God and Libertie ! 

IV. 

Let thrones and priests in league combine. 
Let liv'ried slaves crouch at their shrine, 
We bend but to one king divine — 
Him of eternitie ! 



=d 



140 AMERICAN WAR SONG. 



V. 



Rise ! victims of oppression, rise ! 
To Freedom's War-bird turn your eyes, 
That soars and sings in Western skies, 
With heavenly melodie. 



Away with divisions, forget party strife, 
Unite in one chorus of " War to the knife !" 
In deafening peals, from the culverin's mouth. 
Red battle's wild echoes vibrate through the South. 



Let the Pibroch of Freedom resouad through the plain, 
And echo afar o'er the wide roaring main ; 
While blood flows within us, the burden shall be, 
Our Home and our Altars, God and Libertie ! 

VII. 

On, on, to the combat, ye fearless and brave ! 
Leave flight to the coward and fear to the slave ; — 
By cringing to tyrants a nation 's undone. 
And laurels by cowards have never been won. 

CHORUS. 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &c. 

VIII. 

Each heart shall beat high with a patriot's rage, 
While despots and priests in a vile war engage ; 
To strengthen their rotten dynasties and creeds — 
Their foul machinations and blasphemous deeds. 



AMERICAN WAR SONG. 141 

CHORUS 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &c. 

IX. 

The Monarch of heaven said, " Let there be light !" 
So screams our War-bird in his heavenward flight ; 
So echo the dungeons, so rattle the chains 
That are represented on Mexican plains. 

CHORUS. 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &;c. 



From the blood of old heroes our legions shall spring, 
As daring as eagles, as swift on the wing ; — 
To grapple with braggarts in their lawless might, 
The God of all battles decrees what is right ! 

CHORUS. 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &c. 

XI. 

The thunders that rattle through heaven's blue arch ; 
The bellowing billows through ocean that march ; 
The earthquakes that rumble through chaos and night, 
Alone shall resemble our wrath in its might. 

CHORUS. 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &c. 

XII. 

Our souls shall burst forth in a moral Siroc, 

And tyrants and priests shall acknowledge the shock ; 



142 AMERICAN WAR SONG. 

Like rocks which Cordilleran lightnings shatter, 
When on the dark mountains the thunderbolts clatter. 

CHORUS. 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &c. 

XIII. 

In volcanic thunders our cannon shall yell. 
And pour out their fires like the flood-gates of hell ; 
Our efforts shall heaven and liberty claim, 
Though Mexico's capital smoulder in flame. 

CHORUS. 
Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &c. 

XIV. 

Upon the five oceans our colors shall wave, 

As tokens becoming the free and the brave ; 

Our commerce shall float undisturbed o'er the flood. 

Or the foam of the billows shall drink our hearts' blood. 

CHORUS. 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &c. 



In the valleys our drums and our bugles shall sing ; 
In the valleys the sound of our muskets shall ring ;- 
In their scabbards our cutlasses never shall rust, 
Till the heads of our foes are laid low in the dust. 

CHORUS. 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom, &c. 



AMERICAN WAR SONG. 143 

XVI. 

By the ghosts of our heroes departed, we swear 
From blood and from vengeance no more to forbear ; 
Till we shall from foreign aggression be free, 
And repose unmolested under our own fig tree. 

CHORUS. 

Let the Pibroch of Freedom resound through the plain. 
And echo afar o'er the wide, roaring main ; 
While blood flows within us, the burthen shall be — 
Our Home and our Altars, God and Libertie ! 



=@ 



THE MISANTHROPE. 



Go ask the wave that wanders from afar, 
And dashes headlong on some hostile bar, 
Why to destruction thus it rushes on, 
Roars, froths, and foams a moment, and is gone ? 



Go ask the lone and lightning-scathed oak, 
With trunk and branches by the tempest broke, 
Why on the gloomy records of its fate. 
All bear the marks of what is desolate ; 

III. 

But do not ask the agonizing soul. 
The scroll of years transpired to unroll, — 
To trace the burning characters that mar 
Its pages shaded with such deep despair. 

IV. 

Ah ! do not ask the wretched blasted heart, 
Its thoughts upon years bygone to impart ; 
Them o'er the sea of memory to send. 
With the shadows of misery to blend. 



-^ 



ENIGMA. 



It glows in the landscape, echoes in the mountain, 

Convolves in the whirlpool, and boils in the fountain ; 

'Tis seen wheresoever the moon sheds her rays ; 

In the lightning's sharp flash, and the volcano's blaze. 

It gurgles and murmurs in streamlet and river, 

And. rumbles in earth when its foundations quiver ; 

It flames in the bonfire ; — flickers in the spark. 

Expands in the daylight ; — contracts in the dark ; 

In the tempest it howls ; — twinkles in the stars, 

Whispers in the breeze ; — in the meteor glares ; 

It smiles with the angels : with demons it groans, 

And is an inhabitant of the five zones ; 

In the thunder it rattles •; bellows in the ocean ; 

It's in peace, love, friendship, plague, famine, cGmmotion. 

With comets it wanders ; the planets controls ; 

Describes earth's rotations as onward it rolls. 

And scans its recesses from centre to poles. 

It sings in the spheres as revolving they run ; 

In the firmament travels and burns with the sun. 

It governs each act of the instinctive race. 

And with truth and virtue holds ever a place. 

It enlivens our souls, and respires in our breath, 

Attends us through life, nor forsakes us in death. 



8 



^ 



THE GHOST. 

Making night hideous." — Shaks 



A SPECTRE, all in snowy white, 
Met him close by the run, 

As Thomas late one murky night. 
Was walking with his gun. 



Tom deemed himself a lion bold, 
And ventured up full near ; 

And thrust his gun, but nothing told. 
What stood so firmly there. 

m. 

Like lightning flash his fancy flew 
To some old graves in front, 

And an old saw-mill just in view, 
Where ghosts to walk were wont. 

IV. 

Straightway his hair to bristles turned ; 

He shrunk from it aghast, 
To think ^' one quietly inurned " 

Its form upon him cast. 



@F= 



THE GHOST. 147 

V. 

His eye grew dim, his cheek was pale, 

His heels were his resort ; 
His coat-skirts seemed to lend him sail. 

Which in the breeze did sport. 



VI. 

He never measured steps so fast, 
He slackened every nerve ; 

The pinions of the mountain blast, 
He thought would scarcely serve. 



Although his heels were very kind, 
Yet had he boasted wings, 

He had not dared to look behind 
For all the wealth of kings. 



He lifts the latch ; — he slams the gate ; 

Into the yard he goes ; 
He whirls the bolt ; — the hinges grate ; 

And the door wide open thows. 



IX. 

Full in the house, as Thomas stood 
Inclining to a fall, 
" What brought thee here in such a mood ?" 
His friends cried one and all. 



=-© 



148 THE GHOST. 



" O had you seen what I have seen," 
Said Thomas, faint with fear, 

" Each one of yon had sooner been 
Within the threshold here." 



O, what ? O, what ?" was now the cry 
From both the young and old, 

And anxious stared each vacant eye- 
While Tom his story told. 

XII. 

Upon the spot his gun had lain 

Till beamed another day ; 
Ere Thomas ventured back again, 

To carry it away. 



And now sits he with terror pale, 
O' nights in his araied chair, 

And tremblingly recites the tale. 
To make old women stare. 

XIV. 

To close ; — permit the bard to guess ; 

Be it with rev'rence spoke ; — 
As Tom's own acts do well confess. 

That one nightwalker's broke. 



0= 



THE DRUNKARD 



" Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging ; and whosoever is 
ot wise."— ProB. xx., 1. 



deceived thereby is 



His mind is a carte blanclie, for nothing else fit 

But to note down stale items of Billingsgate wit, 

Or to hold the debates of a grogshop school, 

Whose tutor is ever the noisiest fool. 

He sheer inspiration from his bottle draws, 

While blackguards and whiskey-casks echo applause ; 

His jaws meet together in pack-saddle style. 

His face is a hot-bed where grog blossoms smile ; 

His eyes seem to have been scorched by the simoom, 

And look like two copper balls rolling in rheum ; 

His wide yawning gullet an unceasing vent is 

Of jargon — the offspring of non compos mentis ; 

There's nothing in nature can match his huge mouth, 

Unless alligators be brought from the South. 

The mainspring of folly, he clatters away, 

And sets all the grinning machinery at play ; 

His tongue is a clapper, by whiskey propelled. 

As a mill-wheel by aqueous strength is compelled ; 



150 THE DRUNKARD. 

From his throttle the skin like a hornet's nest hangs ; 

A second Cicero — hear how he harangues ! 

A cataract of eloquence, such as we hear, 

When the clack of a windmill vibrates on the ear, 

While pint pots and tumblers in unison ring 

An apropos chorus, with tingle, ting, ting ; 

Oh, what a great orator ! he is all action, 

A speaker to Demosthenes' satisfaction ! 

He pitches and rears like a dog in high wheat, 

He capers and jumps and calls out for a treat ; 

He grins, groans, and gnmts, swears, vomits^ and swaggers. 

And then reels about, a " half horse" with the staggers ; 

He grins like a monkey or a roasted shoat, 

And loudly proclaims himself king of a — vote ; 

His nose rides upon his face like a packsaddle, 

His chin's like the pommel of a Spanish saddle; 

Hogarth's line of beauty he gives us most rare- 

Ly, describing a course hight curvilinear ; 

That he's "half alligator," touched with turtle blood, 

He proves by his growing attachment for mud ; 

For now he descends from the triumphs of grog, 

To the dirt to contend for empire with the hog, 

Where he doth remain in civiliter mortuus, 

And his nasal music doth snore and snort to us. 

While some of his audience around him are wallowing, 

His example as well as his precepts following. 

This, this, is the drunkard stripped of all disguise, 

Now mark him, consider his ways, and be wise. 



EPIGRAM I 



In Persia once in time of dearth, 

An ass's head ten crowns was worth ;* 

O, had some critics' heads been there. 

Exhibited at such a fair, 

Each then a better price had brought, 

Than elsewhere will be offered for't. 

* During the expedition of Artaxerxes Mnemon against the Cadu- 
sians. — Rollin. 



@ 



EPIGRAM II 



Said Harry to Tommy, What makes thee so sad ? 

There exists not a doubt, sir, but that thou art mad. 

Quoth Tommy to Harry, by way of reply. 

That will ne'er be thy case. Wouldst thou know the cause 

why ? 
'Tis this, my friend Harry, but seldom we find 
A mental distemper where there is no mind. 



FAREWELL? 



^Farewell I a word that makes us linger — ^yet — farewell !" — Byron. 

When bound in love, heart throbs to heart, 
O, how we hesitate to part ! 
The soul droops like a sickened thing. 
And will to its attachments cling, 
Till destiny forbids delay, 
And bears it sorrowing away. 
How painful is the interview, 
Where love repeats its last adieu. 
Farewell ! a word replete with grief. 
Though it be commonplace and brief; 
Farewell ! what agony appears, 
With burning sighs and melting tears. 
In one plain word : yet hope may dry 
The bleeding heart, the moistened eye, 
And time in its swift progress bring. 
Fresh as the bonny bowers of spring. 
New sympathies to soothe our pain, 
When happily we meet again, 
And with fresh joys our hearts shall bloom, 
Relieved from absence, grief, and gloom. 



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